You Don't Have to Feel Ready. You Just Have to Be Willing.
I did something on camera recently that genuinely scared me. And I let the audience watch what happened inside me while I did it. 🎹
Not because I'm fearless, but because this is what courageous living looks like. It's doing it scared. 💪🏼
I've spent more than 20 years teaching clients how to do hard things while fear is in the room. This time I sat down at my own piano, hit record, and did it myself. On purpose.
So if you've been waiting to feel ready before you do the thing that matters, this one is for you. Below are three moves to help you face your fears without waiting for fear to leave first.
Prefer to watch? Here's the full video:
How to Do the Scary Thing — A Live Exposure Demo at My Piano | Dr. Stephanie Best
Why the Piano, and What an Exposure Really Is
In psychology, we call this an exposure. It's an anxiety-provoking situation that you willingly choose to enter, in the service of something that matters to you.
Two words in there are doing all the work: willingly and matters. Sometimes you plan an exposure well in advance, the way I planned this one. Sometimes it shows up with no warning, and you decide in the moment to stay in it. The three moves below work either way. As long as you bring a sense of willingness and keep moving toward what matters to you, you’re building psychological flexibility!
So why the piano? I love my piano, but playing it is a very private thing for me. I have genuine performance anxiety about playing in front of people. My piano lives up in my bedroom partly because it's the only logical place to put it, and partly because it means I don't have to worry about anyone listening to me up there. 😅
(Anyone who knows me well and watched that video was probably thinking, “I can't believe she's doing this!” — including my boyfriend, who had no idea I was recording it.)
When you go looking for exposure therapy examples online, you'll find: elevators, spiders, flying, public speaking. You'll also find: making a phone call, sending an email you've been sitting on for a week, eating in front of other people, driving over a bridge, saying “no” out loud. Any one of those can be worth doing. What makes an exposure effective isn't how dramatic it looks from the outside. It's whether the thing on the other side of it matters to you.
Mine was a piano in my own bedroom. Yours will be something else, and it doesn't have to ‘look like much’ to anyone but you.
Doing things that scare you isn't about proving how tough you are. It's about expanding your world in a direction you choose.
How to Face Your Fears: Three Moves That Work Together
These three moves go together. In the video, I walked through each one in real time at the piano bench, and you can walk through them anywhere.
Open Up
The first move is to open up. Acknowledge what's showing up inside you. What are the uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, and sensations?
Sitting at that piano, my heart was beating faster. My temperature went up. My hands got clammy just thinking about putting it out into the world.
We've talked before about how trying to push a thought away tends to make it louder. ‘Notice and name’ is the alternative. So I named it:
I'm having the thought that I'm going to look really silly.
The story my mind is telling me is that everyone watching will cringe.
I'm having a feeling of anxiety.
There's one more technique from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) that's useful here, and since I was already in a musical mood for this exposure, it fit — sing the thought. That’s right. You can use any tune. I sang mine to the tune of ‘Happy Birthday’:
🎶 I look like an idiot,
I don't know what I'm doing,
You’re cringing while watching this,
‘Cuz I'm not good enough. 🎶
This isn't about making fun of yourself. It's about seeing a thought for what it is — no more, no less — so you don't get over-identified with whatever your mind feeds you in the moment.
Get Present
The second move is to get present. I slowed my breathing down and breathed from my belly. Expand, contract . . . expand, contract. I felt my feet on the floor. I gave myself a small stretch to reconnect with my body. I noticed the feeling of my fingers on the keys and my weight on the piano bench.
That's it. Nothing elaborate. Just enough to bring myself back to ‘right now’ instead of lingering in the ‘worst-case scenario movie theater’ of my mind. 💛
Do What Matters
The third move is where the willingness lives.
Before you do the scary thing, connect to your WHY. One powerful way to do this is to ask your 80-year-old self why this is worth doing.
Mine was straightforward. It doesn't feel right to ask my clients, viewers, and readers to do courageous things in their own lives if I'm not willing to do them in mine. Plus I love the feeling of liberating myself from fear and reminding myself that fear doesn't get to make my choices for me. I CHOOSE. Especially when the choice is in the service of helping someone else.
So I opened up, got present, and then I did what mattered. I played my piano, on screen, for everyone to see and hear. And I didn't cop out and play something I know well. I played a section I still find challenging, because exposures work best when fear is in the room. Playing something I could do in my sleep would have been a well-dressed version of avoidance. 🎹
Afterward my face was flushed and I felt a little silly. That's fine! The point is to practice getting more comfortable with discomfort. Playing flawlessly and impressing the audience was never the point. The point was showing up.
Your Version of the Piano Bench
So what's your version of the piano exposure?
What's the conversation you keep avoiding? The thing you're waiting to feel ready for? Something that matters to you, and that might make life feel a little more vital on the other side.
Start there. Then run the three moves.
Open up. Name what's showing up. Not to get rid of it, but to take a step back from it. If a thought has you hooked, try singing it.
Get present. Use your five senses. Feel your feet on the floor. Notice your breathing. Get out of your mind and come back to the ‘NOW’.
Do what matters. Connect to your WHY, then move courageously toward it, while the fear is still there. It can come with you on your values-driven journey.
Learning how to face your fears isn't about waiting for ‘a-version-of-yourself-who-isn't-scared’ to arrive and save you. That version isn't coming, and you don't need her to build a life you love.
You don't have to feel ready. You just have to be willing. 💫
Ready to take the next step?
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I'm about to do something on camera that genuinely scares me — and I'm going to let you watch what happens inside me while I do it. Because this is what courageous living actually looks like. It's not fearless. It's doing it scared.
Hi, I'm Dr. Stephanie Best. I'm a licensed clinical psychologist, and I teach high-achieving men and women who struggle with anxiety how to liberate themselves from fear with mind-body wellness so they can live more courageously and build lives they love.
As you can see, we're doing something a little different this week. I'm sitting at the piano. I have spent over 20 years teaching clients to do hard things while fear is in the room — and today, I'm going to do it myself, on camera, on purpose.
This is what we call an exposure. It's an anxiety-provoking situation that you willingly choose to enter in the service of something that matters to you.
Why is this an exposure for me? I love my piano, but playing it is a very private thing. Typically, anyone who knows me and is watching this — particularly my boyfriend, who didn't know I was making this today — is probably going, "Oh my god, I can't believe she's doing this." I really do have performance anxiety when it comes to playing in front of people. It's something I cherish on my own. My piano is up in my bedroom partly because it's the only logical place to put it — but if I'm honest, it also means I don't have to worry about anyone listening to me up here. So I thought this would be a perfect exposure for this setting.
I'm going to teach you three psychological flexibility moves to use when you're doing an exposure. They all go together, and I'm going to walk you through each one in real time. We're going to talk about how to open up, get present, and do what matters.
Open Up
The first step is to open up — to acknowledge what's showing up inside of you. What are the uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, and sensations?
Right now, I'm noticing my heart beating a little faster. My temperature just went up. I'm feeling some clamminess in my hands just thinking about doing this in front of you and putting it out into the world.
You might remember from an earlier video that trying to stop thoughts or push them away doesn't work. We talked about a strategy called labeling — noticing and naming your thoughts to create a little distance from them. So right now, I'm noticing I'm having the thought that I'm going to look really silly. The story my mind is telling me is that you're all going to cringe when you see this. I'm having a feeling of anxiety and nervousness.
And since we're in a musical mode today, I'll share one technique from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy that's really useful for getting a little space from difficult thoughts: singing them. You can sing them to a common tune or make up your own. Happy Birthday works pretty well.
So I might sing: "I look like an idiot, you're going to think I don't know what I'm doing, everyone watching this is cringing, and I'm not good enough."
This isn't about making fun of yourself. It's about seeing a thought for what it is — no more, no less — and not getting so over-identified with the content of what your mind is handing you in this moment.
Get Present
The next step is to get present. I'm going to slow my breathing down and breathe from my belly — just expand and contract. I'm noticing my feet on the floor. Maybe I'll give myself a little stretch to connect with my body. I'm noticing my fingers on the keys, my weight in the piano bench, helping me come back to right now.
Do What Matters
Now it's time to do what matters.
We've also talked in a previous video about asking your 80-year-old self why something like this is worth doing — letting that help you connect to your why before you do the scary thing.
For me, it doesn't feel right to ask you week after week to do courageous things in your own life if I'm not willing to do that myself. I also love the feeling of liberating myself from fear and reminding myself time and time again that fear doesn't get to make the choices for me. I get to choose — especially when it's in the service of helping others.
I'm hoping that by watching someone like me — a clinical psychologist who's done this work for many years — having some pretty uncomfortable anxiety and doing something scary in the service of being there for other people, of modeling what courageous living looks like, of expanding my world and hopefully yours — I'm hoping that will help you do the same.
So. I've now opened up to my thoughts and feelings, come back to the present moment, and it's time to do what matters. And I'm not going to cop out and play something I know really well. I'm actually working on a section I don't know well yet — because I really didn't think that would be fair. I should do something that's genuinely scary.
So here we go.
[Stephanie plays the piano.]
I have done it. I'm noticing my face is probably flushed. I hope you got a kick out of that. And I also recognize — it's silly. A lot of the stories our minds tell us are irrational. Whatever you thought of that, it wasn't about the song itself. It was about showing up, being brave, and doing something that matters to you for your own reasons.
Your Version of the Piano Bench
So what is your version of the piano bench? What's the conversation you keep avoiding? What's the thing you're waiting to feel ready for before you do it? Something that's important to you. Something that might expand your world on the other side — make life feel a little more vital, a little more worth living.
These same three moves — open up, get present, do what matters — can work there too.
You don't have to feel ready. You just have to be willing.
If you want more of this — real psychology with real tools for real moments — subscribe and join me every few weeks to learn how to face the scary things in your own life with more courage and heart. Thanks for being here.
