When we last left our Abecedarium, we were discussing how this eons-long house renovation required a lot of endurance from Trish and me.  I left you with a bit of cliffhanger on the letter F—that our ordeal was so difficult because it was an “FFT”.

To explain this essay, I am borrowing shamelessly from (but with direct attribution to) Brené Brown and her decades of research into shame, vulnerability, and the power that comes from living an authentic life.  Hopefully, I will do her work justice and not end up with a “cease and desist” order.  I first heard about the concept of an FFT in the very first episode of her Unlocking Us podcast.  As with most of her concepts, the articulation hit me like a ton of bricks because it helped me wrap words around something that I kind of knew but did know how to describe.  I encourage you to invest the ~40 minutes and listen to the episode here.

An FFT is a “F**king First Time”.  We have all navigated FFT’s throughout our lives.  You can’t avoid them, even if you rarely leave your home.  Neither Trish nor I have ever undertaken any serious home renovation.  We had each contracted for little-ish projects here and there, but this was big.  This was four months of construction that literally and figuratively trashed every room in the house, sent us into exile since there was no way we could stay in the house, and put us on a rollercoaster of excitement, fear, disappointment, ecstasy, and exhaustion.  We didn’t know what we should be doing; we didn’t know if our expectations were realistic or not; we didn’t know when we needed to push the builder and when we needed to nod knowingly and say, “this is what happens, right?”

What makes an FFT so difficult?  Well, as Brené says, it’s the ultimate in vulnerability and no one likes feeling vulnerable.  Being new at something is really hard.  You are afraid of messing up, of being taken advantage of, of looking foolish, of failure, of simply having made a big ole mistake.  An example comes to mind that most of you reading this will probably relate to experiencing:  the first time you used the Uber app and summoned a ride.  My Uber FFT was probably in Atlanta since that is my most common destination in which I don’t either rent a car or have a means of transport.  I needed to get from the airport to my sister’s condo.  I had downloaded the app and “practiced” as much as I could without actually requesting a ride.  I was afraid of what I didn’t know, such as “what happens AFTER I hit the button to request an UberX?”  I was afraid I would do something stupid like not know where to stand or go to get into the wrong car.  I wasn’t sure whether to sit up front or in the back (in the early days, either was acceptable).  How much small talk should I make?  The one thing I wasn’t afraid of was being kidnapped or getting into an accident.  Maybe I should have been, but my fears were dominated by ME doing something stupid, not the driver.  I remember my heart just pounding when I hit that “request” button the first time.  I remember nothing else about that first ride—just my own fear of messing up and looking stupid.

Probably the biggest FFT of my life was when I moved to Mexico.  Scariest thing I’ve ever done.  I moved down there alone, for a job that was ill defined and probably destined to fail, and couldn’t speak more than three words of Spanish.  Poorly.  Upon reflection, I am glad that I didn’t know what I didn’t know.  I had some difficult times, to be sure, but it was also the richest, most wonderful experience of my life.  FFTs are like that.  The scarier it is, the more rewarding the results.  This is why it is actually good, in my opinion, to seek out FFTs.  Of course, sometimes they just choose you.

We all share an example of an FFT that chooses you and this one is a biggy—the COVID-19 pandemic.  None of us have navigated anything like it. (I am assuming that none of my readers were alive and aware of things during the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918.)  We had no freaking idea what was going on, what we knew and what we didn’t know, whom to trust, even how to truly protect ourselves.  Memories of those early days are probably fading and, since there has (and continues to be) an enormous amount of Monday Morning Quarterbacking over national and local response, we probably have forgotten how scary those first months were to us all.  I’ve glanced back over some of my journal entries from those days and it’s enlightening.  In some ways, I was way overreacting.  In other ways, I was way underreacting.  Regardless, there was a lot of emotion and discomfort and fear.  Classic FFT.

While the example of the pandemic is an extreme one, since there was so much we could not control as individuals, it is really important to push through FFTs when you come up against even a “small” one.  Since “being new is hard,” as Brené says, it’s easy to convince yourself to just not try new things.  But if you stop trying new things, stop pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, you stop growing and stop living.  You don’t just stay static; your world starts to constrict around you.

Since we all have to tackle FFTs, large and small, it is helpful to have a strategy.  Brené gives us three steps and I encourage you to look up her more in-depth treatment.  First name it and normalize the feeling.  Say to yourself, “OK, this is an FFT.  It’s all right to feel nervous.”  Naming it gives you power.  Second, keep it in perspective:  this isn’t going to last forever.  “I will get through this thing.”  Finally, put a reality check on your expectations.  You won’t be perfect at something new.  You don’t HAVE to be perfect.  Do your best.  If you do it again, you can get better.  But do it.  And give yourself a little grace.