Organic Self-Esteem, Insecurity À La Mode, And A Fresh Side Of Fear
Ignoring your critics can be just as bad as taking them too seriously.
[Unobstructed Issue No. 054]
Learning happens on the edge of our comfort zone.
Growth happens outside of it.
Want to grow? Take the leap. And when you do, you’re going to overcommit and that’s totally normal. It happens to me, too. We all juggle too much. And I’ll bet you—
Oh…um…no, no it’s fine. You don’t have to tell me.
Hypothetically, let’s say maybe you overcommit sometimes, too? Or, maybe you have a…friend…who does?
Hey. hi. hello.
Welcome back or welcome to Unobstructed.
It’s not reallllyyy about preventing yourself from getting bogged down. Sure, try your best. But it’s still going to happen. It’s actually about whether or not you can reset yourself when it does.
That’s what matters—getting your bearings, not being perfect.
I’ve spent years working on boundaries and prioritization systems. Then even more time learning to give myself grace when swinging between “just a little upkeep” and “a whole lot of keeping up.”
Here’s how that works:
Focus on what’s about to happen, not what just happened.
Slow down your pace
Get your footing.
Pick one thing to do first.
Do the thing.
Then keep moving.
Your weekly spotlight.
“If you're not also in the arena getting your ass kicked, I'm not interested in your feedback.”
That’s Brené Brown during her 99U keynote, paraphrasing Theodore Roosevelt’s Man In The Arena speech.
You’ve probably seen her viral TED talks on vulnerability (yep, plural). They helped kick off a global conversation about bravery and connection. She describes herself as a shame researcher, but she’s also the author of Atlas of the Heart, Daring Greatly, and several other books.
In this talk, Brené shares what happened after she went viral—when the comment section sucked her in. I like how honest she was about what helped her climb out of it.
It was Teddy Roosevelt (and apparently a lot of Downton Abbey).
The Man In The Arena speech helped her reframe things. And the first time I heard Brené deliver the 99U keynote back in 2013, it hit me pretty hard. Her ideas about shame, vulnerability, and courage found me at a time when I was really struggling.
Now, more than a decade later—and after taking a few very recent leaps into the unknown—I rewatched this video. Something she said stood out to me this time:
“We create an ideal of what we think we’re supposed to be.
And what a lot of us do, is orphan the parts of ourselves that don’t fit it.”
*sigh*
Just wow. Even when we’ve heard something a thousand times, hearing it from the right person, in the right way, at the right time, can make all the difference.
This video (22 min) is a stellar reminder that ignoring your critics can be just as bad as taking them too seriously.
illegitimi non carborundum—don’t let the bastards get you down.
Cheers to being scared AND doing it anyway.
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Taking the leap.
I grew up cliff jumping.
It’s exactly what it sounds like and it’s where I learned about fear: standing on the jagged edge of a rock and pushing off, into a free-fall above the water.
I loved it, my mom did not. Ok well, I loved some parts of it. The other parts took some getting used to.
The lead-up is where my fear was worst.
Ughh, the anticipation…
Butterflies in my stomach
Tightness in my chest
My heart pounding…
There’s no middle-ground with overcoming fear—it’s all or nothing.
You can’t only jump out a little bit, you need to fully commit. The safest way to cliff jump is to jump out FAR, toward the deeper water and away from any rocks or shallow spots.
Yes, of course I was scared…and you would be too.
But here’s what I learned:
Fear is your body's way of saying, "hey…ummm…are you sure about this?”
Which sometimes sounds like, "HEY DUMBASS, maybe don't do this?!?!”
The more I went cliff jumping, the less I got stuck in the fear phase.
What your fear is actually trying to tell you is:
"Please be smart about how you do this."
Learning that really helped me in other parts of my life, too. Because sitting with your fear is what causes the most problems. When you focus on what could go wrong, it distracts you from what could go right.
That’s where mistakes get made. You need to do the opposite.
Leaning into your fear gets you through it faster.
UMMM what??
Yeahhhh I know, I know.
But that’s how you get fear to be quiet. It’s like when you hear the collision-sensor in your car. Your fear is warning you to do something and take action.
You don’t keep listening to the beeping.
You can’t maybeee kinda take action—
You have to fully commit.
I re-learned that lesson about fear recently.
“And the winner is…the mustached man himself…Derek MacDonald.”
I blinked, unsure if I’d heard that correctly.
Wait—I think I just got voted Community Champion…? Holy shit.
I’d taken a pretty big leap, and a group of people, from countries across the world, had actively gone out of their way to submit my name. I couldn’t believe it.
Let me back up.
When I’d joined an online writing challenge back in September, I hadn’t thought much about the community that came with it. Mostly, I’d just been focused on calming myself down. Because I was nervous.
The challenge required writing daily on social media, every day, for 1 whole month.
Not only had I exiled myself from the online world years prior, I couldn’t remember the last time something I wrote felt like “me”. My years in corporate seeped into everything I created and sounded about as interesting as the terms and conditions we never read.
That challenge was hard. But I loved the puzzle of figuring it out. Like a lot.
So I stayed on in the community.
And for months, I tinkered.
Observing.
Learning.
Watching closely.
Practicing from a distance.
Well, last month I did the challenge again. This time it was on Substack, and I’d told myself it was time to get in the game.
So that’s where I took another leap.
And I offered to host one of the community’s weekly check-in calls where members connect on their progress. A couple amazing things happened:
I met a lot of really wonderful people.
I started writing stuff that felt like “me”.
While I’d been focused on actually being part of the community, I stopped thinking so much about my writing.
I leaned into my fear.
And I took the leap.
onward.
-dmac
P.S. Trying to make sense of your Substack site settings? Use this free checklist to try the 5 Ps framework.
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