Daring Mondays: Just Keep Swimming

It’s hard to believe that we are so far into 2010 isn’t it? I mean, how far along are now? And yet, it hardly even feels like the year is even started. The one thing that really emphasizes for me how much of this year we’ve worked through are these Daring Monday posts.

In fact, every now and then I have a minor freak out about how far we are into my Daring year and how many more weeks we have left to go! Frankly, at least once a week I become positive that I can’t possibly pull another useful Dare out of thin air again.

What was I thinking anyway?

Writing 52 dares in one year?? To be honest, I don’t think I actually sat back and thought about what all this would entail. It seemed like a good idea at the time, so I did it. But now, I’m not always so sure it was a good idea.

You know, every now and then Disney does manage to piece together a bit of brilliance and I think that Dori’s “Just Keep Swimming” philosophy might have been their most inspired one.

It’s tempting when I look at the enormity of the task before me to decide to quit. I mean, how difficult would it really be to just walk away from the thing right now? And, continues the Negative Nellie voice in my head, it’s not like you don’t already have a collection of experiences with quitting already cataloged. Who’d even notice?

I seem to have a reputation as a person who starts a ton of things, but rarely finishes (or follows through) on any of them. Each time I fail, or more accurately, quit before I can succeed I reinforce the belief that I am, not only a quitter, but doomed to fail.

I remember, years ago, I think I was reading Steven Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, reading that each time we break a promise to ourselves we reinforce our belief that we are unreliable, or a promise breaker, but each time we manage to keep a promise we chip away at that belief. The easiest way to change what others, and especially what you, believe about who you are is to start acting differently.

That means that if I want to prove to myself that I’m not a quitter all I have to do is follow through with one commitment. Each success proves that I can do it after all. 52 dares is an awful big promise, but it’s not my first success in this area (I’ve been slowly fighting back the idea that I constantly quit things) and so, this week I’m doing what it takes to just keep swimming: I’m challenging you not to quit.

Hopefully, next week I’ll manage to figure out just one more Dare or challenge that I need to face (and overcome).

What are you tempted to quit this week? Is there something you’ve given up on that’s weighing on you? What act can you do to just keep swimming – to keep moving in that area? What negative belief about yourself do you need to start chipping away at by acting differently? Here’s to the courage to just keep going and I’ll see you here again next week!