I’m on vacation right now. I’ve never been the kind of person who works out on vacation. I’ve always taken it easy and told myself I’d get back to it when I’m home. And maybe that’s fine. But I’ve been exercising daily for a couple of months and I told myself I’d keep up the daily routine this time. At some point I’ll probably switch to a different routine but this vacation wasn’t going to be the reason for abandoning my current schedule.

I packed some basic stuff, mostly exercise bands since those are easy to use wherever. I was self conscious about putting this stuff in my bag, and it was weird for me to let my wife see. Why? Limited packing space. Because I’ve never packed this stuff before. Because I have never been the kind of person to bother exercising on vacation. All stupid reasons built around an irrational fear of judgement. You know what happened when my wife saw it? She said, “Oh, you’re packing exercise stuff?” I replied “Yeah.” The end.

The first full day on vacation, it was getting close to nighttime and I still hadn’t exercised. I retreated to the bedroom and did some push-ups, because I had to do something and I felt awkward going outside to exercise with everyone watching. But a few sets of push-ups aren’t enough to count as a workout session. After the kids were in bed, I finally grabbed the bag of exercise stuff I packed, awkwardly told my wife I would be back, and went outside. A family member followed me outside and chatted with me while I did band rows and more push-ups and band pull-aparts. After a few minutes they got bored and went inside. I finished my workout and took a shower.

The second day I went out in the morning and exercised. Everyone watched me go out and they couldn’t possibly miss me exercising outside the window. The third day I went out to exercise after lunch while the kids were taking a break. The wife read a book in a lounge chair next to me while I exercised. Both days I had fun trying some new stuff for legs. Pistol squats, “box” jumps onto a low wall for reps, split squat jumps to exhaustion (these are surprisingly brutal). You know what didn’t happen either day? The awkwardness. It was almost entirely gone. I established to everyone (and especially myself) on the first day that exercising on vacation is indeed a thing I do.

This is just the story of a guy who did something simple and confirmed it wasn’t a big deal. It’s specifically about exercising on vacation, but it could equally be about barbell lifting in a gym for the first time, or giving a public presentation, or initiating sex without the “humor” shield, or delivering a “no” to a compliance test. None of these are logically difficult, but can bring up anxiety and be emotionally difficult to attempt nonetheless.

Just like the gym, no one else really cares. People might notice you flailing around in the gym for the first time but they don’t actually care and will likely have forgotten about you by the next day. Your team at work isn’t really invested much in whether you bomb a presentation. Even with your wife, she doesn’t care that much about what you do. If a denied compliance test actually ends up creating days of conflict, the compliance test and your response probably wasn’t the real problem.

The only person who really cares about your success or failure in most things is you. Worst case you do get some flak about the new thing you’re trying and that means you get to practice fogging or negative inquiry or broken record (or STFU). The possible negative outcome for action is frequently far smaller than the negative outcome for inaction.

So do the things you want to. It’s only awkward the first time.