Amy bit her lips again, pacing around the sitting room. She desperately wanted to but couldn’t seem to muster up the courage to do so. Memories of past rejections came back in full force, taunting her brutally. And so she didn’t, and instead locked the detailed business proposal she had painstakingly drafted back into her drawer, where five others lay in silent defeat.
Donald, on the other hand, seemed to possess a bottomless well of courage and he liberally applied this in all areas of his life. When it came to relationship and love, for instance, I would watch Don take shots at beautiful ladies that caught his fancy without any apparent fear of getting spurned. And yes, some came with hurtful rejections, but Don was never fazed at all. He kept at it until he hit gold. I smiled as I remembered the priceless expression on his face as he said his wedding vows last week Saturday.
If we sit still and consider in retrospect, I am certain we have all had doses of “Amy moments” where we chickened out of following through on submissions or shooting shots we desperately wanted to.
Before you’re tempted to vilify Amy or throw subs, she may not have always been like that. Any number of experiences could have led right to that stage in her life. Maybe she lost faith and hasn’t gotten it back. Maybe Amy was a formidable Don before life burnt other fruit trees and handed her only lemons. Like it has done to a lot of us.
I couldn’t help but ask Don about his source of strength. He did not become the Don we all admired overnight. He simply believed in one simple reality: chickening out brings about a definite outcome which is failure. But shooting your shot comes with the chance of two potential outcomes: success or failure. And life is too short and unpredictable to be lived on one (sure but unfavourable) outcome.
You have a job you haven’t applied for because you feel undeserving? Do it! Or perhaps you have an idea you believe in that you need to pitch to someone? Tag the person or establish contact and make sure your gun is loaded to deliver a shot that wouldn’t be missed.
How about that idea that you had that received a few emphatical NOs? As long as you believe in it, pick it up again, and keep shooting shots until you hit your target. Do you have a love interest? Shoot your shot or someone else will show you how it’s done, and end up with them.
In essence, this post is calling you to shoot the shot already. Make that move. The worse that could happen is rejection but if you don’t, the “could-happen” becomes the reality. So you lose out and get the same result you most feared.
I’ll wrap this up with a quote from Wayne Gretzky, “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” So, start taking them from today!
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Love,
Diane
