Time is a funny thing

How is it June already? Where on earth has this year gone?!

Even while resting it feels as though time is moving fast. One week to go until the new job starts and we see whether this is a new beginning or a blip on the career landscape (hoping for the former, making escape routes if it turns out to be the latter!)

This week I have spent a lot of time with other people, catching up with friends for lunch, visiting family and generally reconnecting with people that I've not spent much quality time with for a while. It has been really fun, and also quite draining.

I am very much an introvert, I know I need time to myself to replenish and refresh, so after this week being busy seeing people, I'm looking forward to having some alone time this week.

Then a text arrives from someone I met at a conference a few weeks ago... "would you like to meet up?"
I don't really know this woman, we had a really lovely chat at the conference and discovered we live about 5 miles away from each other, so we swapped numbers and said we'd stay in touch. What has surprised me is... that actually seems to have happened!

I've spent several years feeling quite annoyed and hard done by with the fact that whenever I want to get in contact with someone, it's always me starting out - no one ever text's me first. And yet, here I am now, with someone having text me first and I'm wondering what I actually want to do! It almost feels like a first date (it definitely isn't... just making that clear) Where will we meet? What will we talk about? Will we get on as well as we did when we first met? What if she decides she doesn't want to meet up again?

I have no idea! And it's quite exciting, and nervy! The good news is, that the answer to all of those questions doesn't really matter, we'll meet somewhere, we'll talk about something, if we don't get on then we just won't meet up again! When I think about it from that perspective it makes things much simpler and less anxiety inducing.

It got me thinking about the ways we caue ourselves stress. So much of it comes from trying to predict the future:
- Trying to make things perfect, when we're fairly sure that it will be appreciated for 2 seconds at most,
- Trying to work out what to expect when you have zero experience of something (here's looking at you new job... I see you and I don't know what you look like!),
- How long will the journey take based on traffic?
- How will someone react to a gift?
- What will people think of me if I wear this??
Answering these questions with the question "Why does it matter?" and quite often, you'll realise it doesn't!

Fear of judgement and discomfort make us do strange things. Fear of being judged or feeling uncomfortable are fantastic ways for us to create barriers for ourselves and stop ourselves from doing things we might want to do. We become so afraid of what might happen, that we don't give ourselves the opportunity to try something new.  

So I shall enjoy my last week off before the new job starts, I will meet with this lady and not overthink it, I lose nothing by going but I may gain a new friend through it! We shall see and I'm sure I'll tell you about it.
What about you? What have you been stopping yourself from doing with fear of judgement or discomfort? What could you do differently if you decided to give it a go? I'd love to know! Let me know your plans in the comments :)

Until next time