Doing It Scared: Five Moments That Changed Me | By Becky Murdoch

I think I've written about my Jar of Badassery in the Spark before. It's my little jar of remembrance of all of the badass things I've done. The jar itself is up-cycled from what I'm guessing was a spaghetti sauce jar. My friends Justine and Rachelle saved all of their change and gave it to me when I moved to Nashville. It has a piece of masking tape with "Send Becky to Nashville" written on it. That was probably the first badass thing that I ever did. I dropped out of college and worked at a record label in Nashville. Should I have dropped out of college with one semester left? Maybe not. Do I regret that choice? Absolutely not!

Our October theme is Fear & Creativity: Pushing Past Resistance, and that got me digging a bit deeper into my Jar of Badassery. I needed to remember the things I've done that scared me, that I did anyway.

Every time I've stretched creatively, fear has been right there with me — but so has growth.

Here's a look at five things I've done that have absolutely terrified me.

1. Belly Dancing 

As I was thinking about what to write for this week, I struggled. Then I saw a note that I had written on a Post-it a couple of weeks ago. I think the writing of the note was prompted by something Melissa said during one of our weekly coworking sessions. I recently started taking a belly dancing class, and to be honest, I'm not great. I feel uncoordinated and uncomfortable in my own body. Even with all of those things, I show up every month and dance. I get frustrated in the middle of class and stop for a minute to adjust. I keep going back, and I'm still not great, but I am getting better.

It's a small class right now, just two or three of us on any given week. That's so intimidating, but it's also made me let go of needing to be perfect. The last couple of classes we have been learning turns. I get what I'm supposed to be doing, but somehow my feet don't end up where they are supposed to. My instructor thinks we're doing great, and you know what? By the end of the last class, I was landing those turns. I'm not getting on a stage anytime soon, but I am staying open and curious while allowing myself to be bad at something.

The thing about belly dancing is that it forced me to make peace with the messy middle. That uncomfortable space where you're not a beginner anymore, but you're definitely not a dancer. You're just someone showing up, repeatedly, even when you feel ridiculous. And somehow, that's where the real magic happens.

2. Improv Class

This was a big one. I hate to perform. Really, I hate to be seen. Unless I'm with my friends, I really don't like to be the center of attention. I want to control when people are looking at me. This class made me do silly things in front of my classmates, and I hated it. Really, hated every minute of it, but just like belly dancing, I went back. I might have watched the clock, but I went back.

Learning the "yes, and…" principle helped to loosen me up and helped me to drop the fear. There's something about committing to yes, to building on what someone else offers instead of shutting it down, that makes you realize the outcome doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to exist. And when you stop trying to control how you look to others and just say yes to the experience, something shifts. I'm still not comfortable being the center of attention, but I'm a lot more comfortable being ridiculous about it.

3. Assistant Directing a Musical

I still don't know how this one happened. My friend asked me if I wanted to assistant direct a musical she was working on. I didn't know the Director and had never done anything except go to see a musical. It was a lot of long nights, and it was far away from work and home, but I did it.

The whole time I was thinking, "Who am I to do this? I have no experience. People are going to figure me out." But here's what I learned: nobody really knows what they're doing the first time. We're all just doing our best, asking questions when we need to, and trusting that we'll figure it out. I learned more about myself, about leadership, about telling a story through movement and blocking than I ever expected. And the show? It was beautiful. And I had a hand in that.

4. Starting Salute Your Shorts Film Festival

Who knew that a conversation in a parking lot after church would lead to co-founding Salute Your Shorts Film Festival just a short five months later? Not me. I remember standing there, talking about film and community and how we wanted to celebrate short filmmakers, thinking this was just a nice idea. A dream. Something people talk about and then forget about.

But we didn't forget about it. We actually did it. We built something from nothing — from a parking lot conversation to a real festival. There were so many moments where I thought, "We can't actually pull this off," but we did. And every time I doubted it, I also felt something underneath that doubt: excitement. The two lived right next to each other. Fear and exhilaration are closer cousins than I ever realized.

5. Starting My Blog, No Sex in the City

When I started writing this blog, I felt the weight of every "Who do you think you are?" that echoed in my head. Who am I to write this? Who am I to share my voice? What if nobody reads it? What if somebody does, and they don't like it? What if I'm boring? What if I'm not?

The voice of resistance was loud. It still is, honestly. Every time I sit down to write, there's that little voice asking me why I think my words matter. But here's what I've learned: that voice doesn't get to decide. I get to decide. And I've decided that showing up, even when it feels vulnerable and terrifying, is worth it. Publishing anyway is an act of courage — creativity demands visibility. It demands that we put ourselves out there, unfiltered and imperfect, and hope that someone reads it and feels less alone.

So I write anyway. Some posts are vulnerable. Some are messy. Some might miss the mark completely. But they're honest, and they're mine.

Fear as a Compass

When I look at my Jar of Badassery, I don't see a collection of times I was fearless. I see a collection of times I was terrified and did it anyway. I belly-danced badly. I did improv and felt humiliated. I assistant directed without any business doing so. I co-founded a festival on a hunch. I started writing in public.

And here's what ties all of these things together: fear wasn't a stop sign. It was a signal. A signal that I was on the edge of something, standing at the threshold between who I was and who I might become. And every single time, I chose to step through that threshold anyway.

Fear walks beside me, but creativity leads. And that's how I know I'm going somewhere worth going.

So here's my question for you: What creative thing scares you right now? What's sitting in your chest, whispering that you can't do it, that you're not ready, that you don't know how? I'm willing to bet that's exactly the thing you need to do. Drop out of college (Ok, maybe don’t do that.  I don’t know, do what’s right for you.). Take the dance class. Say yes. Build something. Write it down. Show up.

Do it anyway. And maybe someday, you'll have your own jar full of proof that fear is just the price of admission for a life worth living.