Summer has finally arrived!  It has been such a pleasure to get outside for a few walks and to have some real time to think while enjoying the beauty of nature.  With the arrival of a new season, it seems everyone is ready to move more - both literally and figuratively.  The subject of moving forward has been a central theme in my discussions with clients and audiences lately.  We’ve been exploring the many obstacles to making our dreams come true.  Often the biggest thing blocking us from achieving our goals is our own limiting beliefs and fear of facing - well, our fears.  But once we find the courage to really look at what’s holding us back, we can often create strategies that will catapult us forward in fun and rewarding directions.  Read on to see examples of people doing just that - much to their own surprise.

Think of a dream you had that you didn't follow through on because of a “Yeah, but."   Yeah, I really want to be a doctor, but I’m not smart enough.  Yeah, I have the soul of a musician, but my father insisted I join the family construction business.
 
So many people have dreams they hold dear, yet they cut off their possibilities before ever giving them a real chance to come true.
 
What stands in the way of your getting what you want in life?  Over the last two decades of leading, coaching, and teaching hundreds of people, I’ve noticed several common behavioral patterns that put a cork on our enthusiasm.  At the root of those patterns: fear. Fear that we’re not good enough. That we are not worthy, that someone else might not approve… and on and on.
 
Those fears wear all sorts of masks and they stand in the way of us naming our deepest desires and going for them whole-heartedly.  Do these sound familiar to you? – people pleasing, perfectionism, procrastination to name just a few? 
 
Sometimes it’s as simple as internalizing a careless comment by someone in a position of authority as truth.  When I was in the third grade, my class was rehearsing for the winter concert.  As I stood in the front belting out a Christmas carol with gusto and glee, my music teacher, Mr. Series, said “Allison, why don’t you go stand in the back row and just mouth the words?”  For the next thirty years, despite my passion for singing, I believed that man knew what he was talking about and I just couldn’t carry a tune.  It wasn’t until I decided to give it a real try and take some singing lessons that I discovered that simply wasn’t the case.   It had never occurred to me that my music teacher was just shirking his responsibility to teach me how to sing.  With that one lazy gesture, he literally stuffed my song inside me.
 
A particularly damaging behavior is engaging in the pernicious “yeah, but habit” that shuts down your possibilities before you even explore them.  Let me tell you a story about a middle-aged man I’ll call Jeremy who had been sitting on his BUTS for years.  Jeremy sought me out for coaching when he was finally ready to leave his unfulfilling job and wanted help finding something much more stimulating.



I was happy to host a guest post on my blog recently by author Mike Robbins as he released his new book, Nothing Changes Until You Do.  Is it a coincidence that his article speaks to the same theme that I’ve been talking about so much recently?  Well, it was just at this moment of writing this intro to his piece in my newsletter that I made the connection.  So coincidence or not, there is a lovely synergy to our articles this month.  Read on for some more inspiration to step out of your own way and enjoy the ride.

Life’s Easy… It’s Dealing With
Ourselves That’s Hard

by Mike Robbins

Author, Nothing Changes Until You Do

With the recent launch of my new book, Nothing Changes Until You Do, I’ve been reflecting a bit on the whole experience of writing this new book and now putting it out into the world.  As with my previous two book writing and launching experiences, it has been exciting and challenging on so many levels.

But unlike the first two books, this time it wasn’t so hard.  Maybe it’s because I’m a few years older and have a little more perspective or maybe it’s because the focus of this book is on our relationship with ourselves, but what I’ve learned this time around is that it really is all about me!  What I mean by this is that writing and promoting a book are actually relatively easy things to do, it’s dealing with myself that’s the hardest part.