When we moved into our house several years ago, we couldn’t figure out our garage door key pad. The previous owners had never used it and the owners before them couldn’t recall their code. It turns out the key pad was dead.
Our actual garage door opener was so old that it would only accept programming from a similarly old keypad. I remember the garage door repair guy essentially challenging me with, “Well, this is really a basic install and you would waste your money having us install it.” I was game.
“Of course,” I said nonchalantly, “I can definitely install that.”
Sometime after that, I did tear open the box. I was immediately overwhelmed by all of the what ifs: What if I programmed the opener and it deprogrammed all of our other remotes (this had happened before)? What if I broke it? What if it took a long time to do? What if it was aggravating? What if I still ended up having to call the company anyway?
Marketers would’ve been delighted with my quandary – this delightful blend of fear, uncertainty and doubt keeping me from doing a simple task and pushing me toward unnecessarily spending money. Many times I considered calling the garage door repair company and paying them a ridiculous sum to fix the problem. I considered buying a new garage door opener – justifying it with the fact that our current opener was so old any way. I considered bribing someone else to fix it.
That ripped-open garage door keypad box found a nice home in the cupboard over our refrigerator where it lived for almost two years.
Every time I took the kids for a walk and had to grab the door opener out of the car, I silently chided myself for being so silly about this keypad. Every time Frank went for a run and left the screen door open, I was annoyed at my silliness.
I could’ve asked Frank to do it, but I didn’t. He was unconcerned by all of this unnecessary juggling and was actually unaware that the solution was tucked away in a cabinet.
Today, almost impulsively, I decided this fear of the unknown was going to be put to rest – at least as far as the garage door key pad was concerned.
Armed with the owners manual, an unhelpful You Tube video of a kid showing off his keypad in the bedroom (not a euphemism) and a new ratcheting screw driver that I love, I went out into the garage and I was the boss of that garage door key pad.
Not only did I program it, I removed the old key pad, installed the new keypad and checked to make sure that the car’s garage door openers still worked.
Everything. Worked. Perfectly.
All in less than 20 minutes.
What this makes me think of: in what ways are fear, uncertainty and/or doubt stopping me from moving forward? What silly work-arounds have I created to avoid addressing fear head-on?
How about you?
