Face Your Fears, A Lesson Learned From #DisneySMMoms

At the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration, I had many "a ha" moments.  Two in particular stood out, however.  First, was Peter Shankman.  Among his points was a slide about obstacles in your way.

(Let’s ignore for a second that I have no mascara to run if I cry. ;-)  )

Too many times, we hit a brick wall in life and just sit beside it complaining about how awful life is to put up such obstacles.  Complaining doesn’t move the wall, however.  It might feel good temporarily (believe me, I know), but it doesn’t solve the overall problem.  Instead, you need to figure out a path around the wall.

Later, Lisa Druxman spoke.  She mentioned about how gremlins will sit on your shoulder and tell you "You can’t do that."  I instantly realized that my gremlin is "High School Me."  Back in high school, I wasn’t exactly a social butterfly.  I was more like a social potted plant in the corner of the room.  Whether it was due to all of the bullying I endured, or just the awkwardness of being a teenager, I didn’t do well in social situations.  I’d stand quietly as close to the wall as possible.  Though I longed to be in the spotlight, I also lived in mortal fear of it.

High School Me sits on my shoulder, I realized, telling me that I can’t ride certain rides, can’t attend social functions, and can’t do a dozen other things.  It’s not that I actually can’t do these things, mind you.  Though I may face some difficulties (for example, remembering people’s faces and names), I can get past these and survive.

In an effort to knock the gremlin off my shoulder for good, I hope to ride four Disney World rides that scare me: Space Mountain, Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster, Tower of Terror, and Expedition Everest.  Each of these rides raises huge red flags with me and makes me not want to proceed.  Luckily, each of these rides also offers photos of you riding the attraction.  I plan on stitching the photos together, along with some phrase either from the conference or inspired by it.  Then, when I feel that shoulder gremlin telling me to just give up over the brick wall in my path, I’ll tell it to look at my montage and then beat it.

Do you have a shoulder gremlin? If so, what does it look like?

Disclaimer: We paid for our own trip to Disney World to attend the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration.  Though we were given an incredible deal from Disney, they never asked us to blog about this event. All opinions expressed above are my own.