The first time is so damn hard. Get it over with!

Some months back, I visited a playland with my two oldest kids.

With a bunch of different slides, a giant jungle gym and climbing walls the playland is really a heaven on earth for kids (and for childish parents 😊)

My children climbed, jumped around and tried most of the activities, except for one specific slide that my daughter was hesitant to attempt, which admittedly was pretty crazy.

She really wanted to try the slide and stood on the platform for almost 45 min. I could feel her anxiety building up. I convinced her to join me on the slide a couple of times, and I recommended her! just to get it over with”. My daughter eventually took the slide alone.

She came out of the tube relieved and with a big smile on her face – “I did it, dad”, she proudly yelled. Her last comment before running up the staircase again was: “I wish I’d done it earlier”.

Here I am, stuck behind a screen writing my first blog post, feeling the anxiety with the same intensity as my daughter sliding the crazy slide for the first time.

My daughter spent 45 minutes overcoming her fears. So far, I have spent weeks overcoming mine.

I’ve been writing, re-writing, trying to come up with clever behavioural and psychological explanations of why the first time is so hard – all of this to postpone publishing this first post – that no one will probably read anyway.

Now it is time for me to “get it over with”, jump on the crazy slide and push “publish”. I plan to publish something every week, so I might as well get used to it.

What is your personal crazy slide, and what is holding you back from jumping on it for the first time?

Thank you for reading.