Fall, a time of transition, brings with it so much promise and anticipation. However, tagging close behind, can also loom feelings of uncertainty. “Instead of viewing the unknown as a season that defines you and inflicts you with fear,” Darling Magazine author, Nicole Zasowski, prompts us to “take the time to make this memorable by getting to know yourself better and learning to see parts of yourself and aspects of your life in a way that you may have never had time to notice.”
Earlier this summer I thought about what it meant to live a life that say’s “I’m all in”. To me it meant saying “Yes”, challenging myself to do something that scared me, doing the things I had always talked about doing and leaning fully into each day even when (especially when) I was fearful of the unknown. This led me to all sorts of adventures: learning to surf, chopping off 15 inches of my hair, going on truly spontaneous day trips, completing a half marathon, and joining a flash mob dance.
I chose to be “all in” because I realized people are the most important thing and there is no time to waste of half-hearted living. And in the midst of this all this, a quote by Hermann Hesse became my motivator to living out loud…
“You want to get drunk so you have to say yes to the hangover. You say yes to the sunlight and pure fantasies so you have to say yes to the filth and nausea. Everything is with you, gold and mud, happiness and pain, the laughter of childhood and the appreciation of death. Say yes to everything, shrink at nothing.” – Hermann Hesse
So what could you do if you stopped telling yourself “no” and simply tapped into the power of yes? Challenge yourself this fall and set your year’s intention to be one that focuses on daring greatly.