Embrace cold feet

I recently did something I felt really enthusiastic about. Something I've wanted to do for years.
I can't go into details of what it was yet, but I can tell you that it's something that's going to change my life a little bit. It means I'm thinking out of the box, and I'm not really used to do that. That in itself is exciting. Very quickly though, I got cold feet. When I got the message that it's not unlikely that I'm going to get what I want, I got some serious cold feet. I fear the cold feet, they weaken every decision, I often retreat because of them. It usually starts with a sleepless night or two where I try to calm myself down, telling myself that I can get out of it again tomorrow, get back to normal. At that point, the fear of doing something irrevocably wrong, temporarily grows beyond the desire for change. And sometimes I give in to the fear and retreat the next morning, going back to status quo. This retreat tends to end with regret. Thoughts about what could have been starts to appear. And the fantasy about what could have been usually looks much better than how things did turn out. The regret is worse than the cold feet, because coold feet I can get through and even feel brave afterwards. I can move on from fear of the future, but regret is based on the past, and the past I cannot change.

So this is a reminder to myself, than when I feel fear from a recent decision, when I get cold feet, I must stick to the plan. The regret of not doing what I fear is worse. The cold feet quickly wears off when the new situation becomes the new normal, regret tends to stick around.