“If you don’t name what you’re feeling, if you don’t own the feelings and feel them, they will eat you alive.”

So says Brené Brown, American academic, bestselling author, podcaster and vulnerability expert, when talking about FFT situations. The children’s version of this term is Terrible First Time (TFT). Bet you can figure out what the adult version stands for.

Nobody loves being new at things. “I think for all of us, being new at something is incredibly vulnerable,” Brené says. “I’ve seen how sometimes we all get so afraid of the vulnerability that we actually stop trying or doing anything that we’re not already good at doing. So if it’s not already comfortable, if we don’t already have some expertise, if we don’t already know how to do it and do it well, we’re not doing it.”

But, when we give up being awkward, we stop growing, and when we stop growing, we stop living, Brené says. She explains that the more we’re willing to try new things, the more new things we’re willing to try. And it’s not because being new gets comfortable, it’s because we learn how to normalize discomfort. The foundation of courage is learning how to stay standing in the midst of feeling uncertain.

Brené says that you have to name the FFT when you’re in it, “Hey, what is going on right now? Why do I feel out of control? Why do I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing? Why am I in a shame spiral? Why am I so confused?”

The answer probably is: “I’m in an FFT.” Naming it is key to understanding it, because we’re a meaning-making species, Brené says. She believes that it is one big myth that naming feelings gives them power. “When we name and own hard things, it doesn’t give the hard things power, it gives us the power to effect change and achieve purpose.”

Naming the FFT leads to three steps that Brené explains as follows: One, we can normalize it, “Oh, this is exactly how new is supposed to feel. This is uncomfortable because brave is uncomfortable.”

Two, we can put it in perspective: “This feeling is not permanent, and it doesn’t mean I suck at everything. It means I’m in the middle of an FFT around this one thing.” Three, I can reality check my expectations: “This is going to suck for a while. I’m not going to crush this right away.”

Brené says that when one is in an FFT you have a tendency to armour up, protect yourself and do things from movies or other ideas that usually move you away from being yourself. She says that you’ll feel weird in an FFT, but you’ll feel less weird when you’re in your values.

Steven Covey says that whenever you experience stress of any kind, look into yourself and ask: In what way am I compromising my innermost values in this situation?

“Living into our values means that we do more than profess our values, we practice them. We walk our talk – we are clear about what we believe and hold important, and we take care that our intentions, words, thoughts, and behaviours align with those beliefs,” Brené says.

Yet, you cannot walk out values that you cannot name. In ‘Dare to lead’ Brené presents a list of over 100 values, out of which you must choose two. This is universally difficult because most people will identify with 10 to 20 values. But, says Brené, if many values on the list are important to you, then nothing is truly a driver. The most difficult work comes in focusing your 10 to 20 second-tier values down to just two.

Jacque Fresco says that perhaps the most significant thing you can know about yourself is to understand your own system of values. Almost everything we do is a reflection of our own personal value system. Our values are what we want out of life.

What do you want, girlfriend? When you’re in an FFT, how can you stay true to the person you really want to be in that situation? There is no one-size-fits-all answer.

It was Elvis Presley who said: “Values are like fingerprints. Nobody’s are the same but you leave them all over everything you do.”