What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid to Fail?

What would you do if you weren't afraid to fail?

Last Thursday I walked into the Clubhouse on Highland and was greeted with handshakes, hugs, and a hot pink sash. "Inspirational" it read. I draped it across my body noting the nice contrast with my grey dress. I smiled as my proud husband took my photo for the obligatory Facebook and Instagram posts.

But I felt like a fraud.

What would you do if you weren't afraid to fail? 

This question was at the center of the night's event, dubbed An Evening of Empowerment.
I was being honored that night by Girls On the Run Birmingham as one of four local "Women Who Inspire" and with Molly Barker, founder of Girls on the Run International.

But I didn't feel inspirational. I felt like a mess.

I'm supposedly inspirational because of See Jane Write, a membership organization for women writers and bloggers that I run. I host workshops, seminars, and networking events to empower women to share their stories. I work as a blog coach. I freelance for a number of local media outlets, mostly writing about feminism and women's issues. I'm an English instructor at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, where I also teach an elective called Women and the Media. It's like Journalism 101 meets Women's Studies. I teach my students (mostly girls, of course) how to write for the web but also how to intelligently examine representations of women and girls in the media.

All that sounds so inspiring, doesn't it? But all of that is killing me.

I've been so busy that that my stress level has been affecting my health, I've stopped exercising and I haven't cleaned my house in three weeks. One day recently I completely forgot to shower.

I've spent the past month devising a plan to end See Jane Write and crafting an email to tell my boss I want to stop teaching my elective, only to scrap the plan and delete the email.

None of this is inspirational.

What would you do if you weren't afraid to fail?

After mingling and munching on appetizers, the honorees and attendees all gathered before a large screen to watch The Empowerment Project, a documentary that follows the journey of an all-female film crew as they drive more than 7,000 miles from Los Angeles to New York over the course of 30 days to capture the stories of 17 powerful women in a variety of fields.

At several points in the documentary the filmmakers turn the camera on themselves asking one another and the audience: What would you do if you weren't afraid to fail? 

While watching the film I started crying and couldn't stop.

I'm still not sure what caused the tears. Maybe they were tears of joy because I was so inspired by the women featured in the film, women like mathematician Ami Radunskaya and Vice Adm. Michelle Howard, the first African-American woman to command a U.S. Navy ship.

As Sarah Moshman, the lead filmmaker on the project, once told Marie Claire magazine, "Our film is like a badass career day."

Sandra Clifford, pilot and cofounder of Women in Aviation, is also featured. In the film Clifford says that the thing that made her proudest in life had nothing to do with flying. She was proudest of inspiring other people, especially other women, to be the pilot of their own lives.

Maybe I cried because with those words I knew my purpose in life -- to help women and girls be the author of their lives. Or maybe I cried because I realized I can't empower women and girls to be the author of lives because I'm not the author of my own.

What would you do if you weren't afraid to fail? 

Very rarely has fear kept me from going after my goals. In fact, this year I've pursued my dreams with reckless abandon. I can't say I regret that -- no matter how exhausted I am as I type these words. I've accomplished so much. I've launched two e-courses, started a mastermind program, spoken at important events, grown See Jane Write in ways I never imagined, and won awards like Birmingham Business Journal's Top 40 Under 40 and now this distinction from Girls on the Run Birmingham. Even while being a complete mess I have managed to inspire people by going after and achieving my goals. So I regret nothing.

But as GG Renee of All the Many Layers so eloquently wrote in a recent blog post, "Goals are fine, but some of us need magic."

And that's exactly what I need right now. I need the magic that comes from writing simply because you love the act of weaving together words and stringing together sentences. I need the magic that comes from muses. I need the miracles that come from God.

What would you do if you weren't afraid to fail? 

If I weren't afraid to fail, I would give myself a break.

If I weren't afraid to fail, I'd trust that old saying that "What God has for me is for me" and stop chasing my dreams until I'm out of breath.

If I weren't afraid to fail, I would give myself the grace to write for myself and for my love of the written word.

I am a mess, a beautiful mess, an inspirational mess.

And I am not afraid.