Remember how I was saying that it’s been a huge year for me? I’m super excited to share that I got my Architecture license!

Biggest. Deal. Ever.

It’s officially official. And I don’t think anything has ever been this big of a deal for me  to achieve.

I didn’t end up having a huge celebration or anything, but my license is definitely up on my fridge for the near future, where I can see it every time I walk by.

But I did notice something really interesting while I was taking my last three exams – I had to cram and get them done in just a little over two months because you only get a total of five years to take all seven exams required for your license {and yes, I went from making fun of people who took the entire time to one of the people who was right up against the deadline, but you know, sometimes a few years just flies by! And those tests are hard… like the brutalest of torture so… }

Anyway, back to my weird realization… after each of my last three tests I was increasingly convinced that I’d failed each one. By the time I took my last test I had never been more sure I had failed something in my life. It takes a couple of weeks to get the results for each test, so by test three I had gone through feeling like I had failed and then finding out I had passed twice, but it still didn’t keep me from going through that vicious cycle again.

What would I do? If I failed my last test I would have to retake it and also retake a super hard exam that I had already passed once before {without getting too off track, you have a ‘rolling time clock’ and if you don’t pass all seven exams in the five years, you start losing tests that you’ve passed.. and have to start over in a way}, would I just throw in the towel and not get my license? All kinds of depressing scenarious went through my head until I got the news that – I PASSED. I was done. I got my license.

I will admit that I did get excited and shed a few tears that it was real, and that I passed and ohmygod I didn’t have to take Structures again {so much math and physics, ugh}… but I noticed that I didn’t experience the excitement of passing nearly to the degree that I experienced feeling like I had failed while I was taking the tests.

Isn’t that interesting.

Have you ever noticed how much you can have of something compared to how much you maybe can’t have something? Like for me with having the fear of failure and having the success… Even just emotionally, I could have one much more than the other.

How much of this affects how you experience any part of your own life?

I also noticed that the bigger deal something is in my life, the more intense the fear. For the longest time before I quit my day job to work for myself I was completely convinced that if/when I quit, that I would lose everything. I would have to move out of my place because I wouldn’t be making enough money to pay my bills at first, I would literally be homeless, and would have to live out of a storage unit and shower at the gym to make ends meet while I started over.

I seriously thought this was actually going to happen. I rationally knew it probably wouldn’t, but that fear was super real and I thought it would. And when I thought about taking the step to have my dream of working for myself, I would ask myself was I willing to go through that huge fear being real to make it happen. It was so real it literally paralyzed me from taking a step, for a long time. Until I got cancer again and had a come-to-jesus moment with myself. If I have this again {the big C} and my life doesn’t change, isn’t that just the biggest waste. So I had to do it, fear or no fear. Until that point, the fear that I felt had been controlling what I was able to have in my life, whether I knew it or not.

But here’s the thing, it wasn’t real. It didn’t happen. And neither was the fear that I would fail these last three tests and have to start over.

I love working for myself, I love my team and I’m super busy, I’ve never been happier with my work life. I passed my tests. I’m super smart and I owned those exams, and now I’m a licensed Architect to boot.

It’s just a shame how much of our energy we give to fear – that isn’t real and it surely isn’t ever your energy. You energy never feels shitty and invalidating… so why do we let it take up so much of our space.. our time… our energy…

The bigger something is in your life, and the more it means to you, the bigger the fear. It doesn’t seem to change, at least not for me, but what I’m realizing is that just being able to recognize that it’s just a huge intense fear because what I’m doing/or about to do is a huge deal, makes it easier to not put my energy into… and I can pour all of that energy into having what I want instead.

How much energy is the fear getting, and how much energy is the success getting? Have you ever taken time to notice that for yourself?

What’s the big deal thing you might be hesitating to do because some big dumb fear might have you paralyzed. And what are you going to do about it.

The fear never stops showing up, you just get better and better at recognizing it and putting your energy and attention into owning what you want… which is far more validating.

As for me I’ll be looking at my license on the fridge and stamping everything I come across just for fun for a while…