Uncharted Territory: ‘I’ve stepped in it again’

We’ve all had a moment or two in our lives where we’ve said ‘yes’ to a work project or a volunteer gig in the community. You know what I mean. The Boy Scout leader asks for someone to bring snacks to the next meeting. Your kid’s preschool teacher needs a chaperone for the zoo trip. The head of the local youth soccer league announces last year’s coach is moving on, and the league needs a parent to step up for the upcoming season.

There’s silence. Everyone puts their head down. The crowd automatically becomes much more interested in the ground. “Wow, look at that dirt on my shoes. I really need to clean them.” No one wants to look the speaker in the eye. No one wants to be the first to break.

Finally, you raise your hand. “Oh hell, why not? I can help out,” you say.

The next thing you know, you realize that you’ve really stepped into it this time. You’ve signed up for a second full-time job on top of your day job. You have extra chores you weren’t counting on and now you have everyone else looking at you, grading your every move and decision. You’ve stepped out from the sea of nobodies to being the guy or gal in charge with the bright red bullseye on your back. You can’t help but instantly think to yourself: “What have I done this time?”

I’ve been thinking about this exact experience ever since Ortensia nominated me to write Chapter 3 in the Uncharted Territory Blog Series. My initial response was classic instant optimism: “Sure, let’s do this thing!”

Then came the moment I sat down, read through Savio’s opening post and Ortensia’s Chapter 2, and stared at a blinking cursor on a blank screen. Trying to pull a few coherent sentences together, a familiar feeling washed over me. Yikes. You’re an imposter, Brian. You’ve really stepped in it this time.

Yet as the initial mild panic settled, it hit me once again how necessary and powerful these moments are. Yes, we need to keep a tight hold on our schedules. At least, I know I do. It’s still good, though, to say “yes” every now and then to challenges outside the neat, comfortable boxes we build around ourselves. Stepping into the muck is often the only way we break down those walls and grow as a person.

Looking back, some of the most memorable chapters of my life started with me stepping straight into something way bigger—and messier—than I bargained for:

—Yo, Teach! A friend approached me after church one Sunday and asked if I’d teach the 7th-grade religious education class. I said “no,” but apparently I didn’t say it loud enough. I quickly learned that 12-year-olds are a tough crowd. The toughest! They didn’t want to be there, they certainly weren’t thrilled with boring old me, and standard lesson plans weren’t going to cut it. I had to learn on the fly how to drop the formality, meet them where they were, and make the content actually mean something to them. Yes, a real “Yikes.”

—Blood, Sweat, and Market Data. At 4:00 PM on Friday, the clock ticked over, and it was my turn. Working at a financial services firm, I volunteered to join the roster of writers who would produce the weekly market summary—a fast-turnaround report capturing the week’s market shifts and economic data. I learned invaluable lessons about the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, and business in general, but every single week my turn came up, I’d ask myself: Why on earth did I volunteer to step into this pressure cooker again?

—Happy Camper. My heart sank as my wife and I drove up the long, winding dirt road to the camp. Volunteering at a camp for kids with special needs felt completely outside my comfort zone. Sure, I scored points with my new wife, but I was way over my head and sinking fast. I knew next to nothing about special needs and was assigned for an entire weekend to care for a non-verbal autistic boy who regularly experienced sudden, out-of-the-blue epileptic seizures. I worried about doing or saying the wrong thing. I could barely take care of myself, and now I was responsible for someone else’s kid. But once I got my feet wet, the awkwardness evaporated—replaced by genuine human connection, shared laughter, and a profound lesson in empathy that no book could ever teach.

—The Good Troublemakers. When fellow blogger friends Vicki and Wynne asked me to contribute writing for The Heart of the Matter, I thought that was my leap. But those same two troublemakers weren’t done pushing me. Before long, they were coaxing me in front of a microphone for an occasional podcast. I felt like I was walking a high wire, but each step widened my world.

Getting Past the “Yikes”

Stepping into the unknown is rarely comfortable. It brings self-doubt, second-guessing, and a few “what was I thinking?”moments along the way. But on the other side of that initial hesitation—and past that first involuntary Yikes—is where real growth and change actually live.

It reminds me too that we bloggers generally share something that’s kind of rare in the world of social media: kindness, respect, and community.

So here’s my challenge to you: What is one thing sitting right on the edge of your comfort zone today? Say yes to it. Step into the messy, uncertain, wonderful thick of it—and see where it takes you.

What’s a time you took a leap of faith and felt like you stepped straight into the thick of it? Drop your story in the comments below!