I hate this quote only because I know it’s true: The things you want most in life are located just outside of your comfort zone. (I’m paraphrasing, so please don’t think you need to correct me.) At a certain stage of life and/or business, the last thing any of us wants to do–like write a book when you’re crazy busy– is submit to discomfort.

I had to learn to drive all over again when I lived in Ireland.  This might not sound like a big deal, I know, but it felt positively death defying. Most of the time, I pretty much wanted to scream and cry, or blame my misery on horrible Walt. Smug Walt. Gasp-y Walt.

The Irish drive on the left hand side of the road, which means  the stick shift is on the wrong freaking side, which totally threw me. But the rural roads–two tire tracks that wove circuitously between 5-foot-tall hedgerows–are what had me whimpering.  I mean, I had to drive with the windows open in order to hear, because I couldn’t SEE, the speeding tractors no doubt driven by farmers who’d been drinking Guinness in the fields all morning. One minute I’d be minding my own business, the next, I’d meet one of them barreling down the hill until they were right up on me.  Then I had  to stop and pull over, provided there was a break in the growth, or back up the quarter mile until I found a driveway, because no two vehicles, regardless of how small, could fit in the provided space side by side.

The problem with learning to drive on the wrong side of a ridiculously narrow road, while shifting with your left hand, in a fucking corn maze, is that, at the age of 50+, you KNOW all the shit that can go wrong.  You know how easy it would be to get snuffed out, how much it would cost to replace a set of tires AND a bumper, and the lifelong guilt you’d feel if you inadvertently picked off a berry-picking pedestrian. At sixteen, by contrast, you’re completely oblivious, and invincible.

I would have continued to weasel my way out of learning to drive, but for one reason alone: I didn’t want to be one of those helpless women who needed her (smug) husband to drive her to the store. (Maybe you don’t want to be dependent on launches or endless sales conversations with the wrong kind of people or all the things that having a book could fix for you if given the chance.)

I’ve done ultra dependent before, and I wasn’t going there again.

The fear of being helpless was a remarkable motivator. It got me behind the wheel for my white-knuckle practice sessions every single time.

That fear was the motivator behind a lot of things I’ve done: climbing Denali, running ultra marathons, walking on hot coals, scuba diving (to the theme song from Jaws), ice-climbing, interacting with sullen teenagers…  Fear of the unknown, and the seemingly impossible, are how great things start. (If you’ve never written a book before, well, it sure can look daunting.) When I can overcome my natural reluctance, endure the process, and come out whole on the other side; I tend to like myself more.

Have you read Feel the Fear And Do It Anyway?   I’m pretty sure I underlined the crap out of it.  It starts this way:

What is it for you?

Fear of…

Public speaking

Asserting yourself

Making decisions

Intimacy

Changing jobs

Being alone

Aging

Driving

Losing a loved one

Ending a relationship?

Like me, I bet you could circle at least 3 of these. Maybe you’d add in writing a book that actually matters.

Here’s the thing. We all cling to comfort, to the familiar; to the tasks we already know how to perform. We all avoid the unpleasantness of learning new tricks, of forming fresh relationships, and of traveling uncharted routes.

We stick to what we know, even when we don’t like where we are. Certainty, after all, is one of the six human needs.

But so is Growth: the expansion of capacity, capability or understanding.

What challenge, if I can ask, have you been avoiding because it’s really uncomfortable?

What stands to change when you make it through to the other side?

Maybe it’s time YOU quit being Miss Daisy.