Are you living a life that you really love; a life that each day you wake up happy to be living? If not, what’s holding you back?

I have been asking myself this question a lot lately. What’s holding me back? Holding me back from being the healthiest I can be, or finding love, or making the money I want to make in a career that I actually want to be in?! I’ve been thinking about how to write this post because I’m still in this process. In the process of letting things go and changing my mindset around different things. In the process of learning how I can overcome my fears and be truly and deeply happy.

I’ve been learning to let go of the fear of failure and the fear of not being wanted or liked. I’ve spent most of my life not pushing myself or giving my all to anything that actually mattered to me. A little while ago I was talking to my siblings and we asked each other what our favorite failures were. The failures that led to good things later or helped you grow as a person. Realizing I didn’t have any felt horrible, I was so scared of failure that I never tried. I gave up as soon as things got difficult. I never took a risk, I was too scared of what people would think of me.

Even though I am still in the process I have done a lot of work. I’m slowly becoming the person I want to be and starting to live the life that I want. I’m letting go of the fears that have been holding me back. Don’t get me wrong I still struggle with it almost every day but most days I’m able to keep pushing forward and each day I’m happier and happier.

The biggest thing that I, and a lot of people, forget is to live on purpose and actually make decisions about life. Getting stuck taking the path of least resistance is a really easy thing to do. The path of staying in a job that you hate because it’s secure. Staying in a relationship that isn’t right for you because it’s more comfortable than being alone or having difficult conversations. The path of waiting, waiting until you’re thinner, wealthier, older, etc. to be happy or enjoy your life.

I used to get depressed after each birthday and I didn’t really know why. I guess I didn’t want to know why. It was easier to keep my head stuck in the sand like an ostrich and just think that I didn’t like getting older. The truth was, I would get depressed after each birthday because I was almost exactly where I was for the one before.

I hadn’t grown professionally. I hadn’t grown personally or in my relationships and it was killing my happiness. Feeling stuck for me is one of the worst feelings (and I’m guessing since you’re reading this it is for you too). So I had to figure out how to let go of all the things that were holding me back from living my dream life. It was hard and took me a really long time. The good news is that you aren’t doing this alone. I am here to help give you some tips and ideas about how to get started.

Before I get into how to start, I want to say that this shit is fucking hard. It’s emotional, confronting, and uncomfortable. You will get sad and pissed off but please believe me. It is completely worth it. And I believe in you. I believe you can do it. I know I don’t know you, but out of virtue of just being here, I believe in you.

Are you ready?

Stop Being an Osterich: Get Your Head Out of the Sand

This is one of the hardest parts because we have to be brutally honest with ourselves.

This is the part where we have to realize that “the way we do one thing, is the way we do everything”. I’m sure some of you have heard this before. It’s really confronting and hard to hear, but if you want to change your life you need to hear it. Nothing exists in a vacuum. This means that there isn’t anything in this world that doesn’t affect or relate to something else. Our lives and habits are the same way. Our limiting self-beliefs and destructive coping mechanisms and habits aren’t limited to one area of our lives. They affect everything we do. They may serve us a little better in some areas than others, but they are still affecting everything.

Let’s get started.

Start by writing down different areas of your life. Start with general categories: Money/Finances, Career/Purpose, Relationships/Love-life, Health/Fitness, and a Connection to something bigger than yourself. This doesn’t have to be religious or spiritual this can be love, community, anything like that.

After you’ve written down these categories. Write down how satisfied you are in each area using a scale of 1-10 (1-being miserable and 10 being complete bliss.) Try not to overthink this or spend too much time rationalizing. As hard as it is, this is the time you have to be fucking brutally honest with yourself. If people spent as much time building a life that was amazing as they did rationalizing and defending a life that was mediocre the world would be a much happier place.

I tried to do this a couple of times before I was actually able to do it. It was hard and made me angry and sad. I would walk away from it over and over again. It put me in a weird limbo where I was unhappy with my life and where I was in it and I could acknowledge that. Yet, setting out to change it felt harder and more overwhelming than staying put.

My life was a mess and I was miserable. My finances were terrible. I hated my job. My relationships were a mess, I was dating men that treated me like shit and like a backup plan. I had no confidence and spent most of my time alone.

I remember crossing my fingers every time I would check out at the grocery store just hoping I had enough to buy food. Taking out a shit ton of student loans with zero plan on how to pay them back or knowing how much I was actually taking out. I was working a job I hated so much that I legitimately hoped that I would get lightly hit by a car every time I was walking to work so I wouldn’t have to go. Once I realized that I didn’t have to stay in a life I hated and started making a plan. It changed everything.

Digger a Little Deeper

Once you have everything listed, take some deep breathes, scream into a pillow, take a quick break, do whatever you need to do. Then come back.

Once you come back, it’s time to start developing a game plan.

You can go in two directions with this depending on how ready you’re feeling. You can either focus on the area that you feel the least satisfied in and that changing will make the most difference, or you can go with an area of life that needs just a little bit of change.

If you’re like me and have a tendency to get overwhelmed easily or feel like you have a lot of change to make, I suggest starting with an area you have some comfortability changing. This way you can build confidence going forward and feel the results of your hard work before getting to the harder parts. Once you have your area chosen get very clear on what you want. Then make a list of what is holding you back from having that. Again the goal is to be as honest as possible with ourselves. Nothing in life is ever going to be perfect but you also shouldn’t feel like you have to take breaks from your own life.

There was a time a few years ago when my whole life centered around taking vacations. I would spend every moment thinking about: when I would go, where I would go, how much it would cost, calculating my PTO, and so on. Then it would be time to go back to “real life” after the vacation and I would just cry. I would spend the last two days of my vacation being sad and not enjoying my time because I knew I had to go back to my life. A life I was miserable in. It took me years to realize that didn’t have to be my life and to figure out how to change it. I don’t want that for you, I don’t want you to be miserable in your life. You can have the life that you want.

Take the Path of Most Resistance

In a lot of areas I am all about the path of least resistance, but not when it comes to making life changes. When it comes to overcoming fear and changing your life for the better I think you have to take the path of most resistance.

Fighting off the things that were holding you back before is hard.

No hero’s journey in any book or any movie comes easily. It doesn’t come without any setbacks or scary obstacles that have to be overcome for a reason. True change and growth comes from looking at your fears and the terrifying things in front of you and continuing on the path and pushing forward anyway.

You are a lot stronger than you think.

Making change is greatly over-romanticized in my opinion. When people talk about change they tend to talk about the beautiful things that come at the end. They talk about how amazing life is after they make the change. Don’t get me wrong, change is beautiful, amazing, and 1000% worth it. But it is also really hard.

It’s hard for a reason.

I truly believe that fear and obstacles are showing you that you are on the right path. You can’t be the same person and live a different life. The obstacles are there to help you grow into a person that is strong enough to handle the new life that you’re wanting to live. The bigger the life you are wanting, the more you have to grow, the bigger the obstacles standing in your way are going to be.

Use that as a guide and know you are on the right path. You can do this.

Invest in a Coach

Accessing your power to make the changes you need to make, to live a life that makes you truly happy is doable on your own. But it will take a lot longer, will be a lot more difficult, will involve a lot more backtracking to develop the skills and the knowledge needed, and usually end up cost more time and money.

Having a coach that knows what they are doing will fast-track everything you want to do. They will help you uncover what it is that you really want, need, and who you want to be. Most importantly they help you discover why you want what you want. A good coach will help you see what has been holding you back from living a life you really want and will help you develop skills and strategies to overcome your fears.

Having a good support system and someone that has an outside perspective can be really helpful.

If you want to work with me or read other clients’ success stories click here.