Have you ever had a situation where you felt stuck, but the real issue was that you didn’t want to acknowledge a truth you already knew?
This uncomfortable reality hit home for a client in a recent coaching session. He realized he was working very hard to stay busy because it meant he didn’t have to face difficult decisions.
He knows what he wants.
He knows what he needs to do to get what he wants.
He doesn’t want to do what he needs to do.
Underneath it all, fear is what’s holding my client back, and what holds most of us back.
Fear is a pesky little bugger, isn’t it?
Fear of being wrong.
Fear of what others will think.
Fear of hurting someone else.
Fear of disrupting the norm.
Insert your own fear here.
We have the capacity to handle whatever life throws at us, even if it doesn’t always feel that way.
Years ago, I watched a friend go on the Alzheimer’s journey with her mother. I remember thinking, “There is no way I could do that.”
Not long after, I walked through cancer with my dad. Mine and his, at the same time. (I’m ok, by the way.) If you’d told me in advance that you were coming, I would have said the exact same thing I said about my friend: there is no way I could do that.
But I didn’t get an advance memo, and so I did it. Not always gracefully, and often with a heavy heart, but I did it.
Before that, I was in a job that felt untenable and unsustainable. So I quit because I didn’t see another way out at the time, and staying there was going to put me in an early grave.
SO.MUCH.FEAR.
But I did it. And here I am, 11 years later, to tell you about it.
You may not have the experience that is amping up your level of fear, but you have the capacity for whatever is in front of you.
