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Have courage to lead the life you want to lead..
By Cali Bird, Life Coach.

I believe that anything is possible in life and that we can all achieve our dreams and fulfil our own unique potential and mission. I believe that even a long lost goal, ambition or aspiration can be resurrected, dusted off and resuscitated. Most importantly, I believe that you can start to work towards that goal from where you are right now. There is always a pathway between your current situation and where you would like to be which consists of small achievable steps. All one has to do is identify these steps and have the courage to stick with the journey.

What is it that underlies most of the factors that prevent us leading the life we want to lead? The answer to this question is fear.

Fear comes in two types which I like to call tangible and intangible. Tangible fear is the obvious stuff. For example, we may be afraid if we are in danger, we may be scared of someone if we are in trouble with them or we may fear someone who we perceive as being stronger or better than ourselves.

Intangible fear, however, is not as clear cut. Intangible fear stops us being the person we really want to be; intangible fear tells us that we can never do the things we have always dreamed of; intangible fear stops us even dreaming of the things we would like to be or do; intangible fear keeps us in our comfort zone; intangible fear can stop us loving and being loved. Intangible fear can definitely stop us from leading the life we want to lead!

More than half the battle with intangible fear is seeing that it actually exists and admitting to ourselves that we are suffering from it. Then we can concentrate on overcoming it.

Small Steps to Big Goals
No matter what your goal is, or how daunting it may appear, it can always be broken down into small bite-size steps. This has the following advantages:

• It becomes manageable to take that all important first step.
• The next step also becomes a more digestible proposition.
• You are able to see quick, regular progress towards your goal.
• Making progress builds confidence. There is nothing like ticking items off the list to make you feel good about what lies ahead.
• This confidence provides momentum which in turn makes it easier to keep overcoming fear and procrastination.
• It is not necessary to know the full details of all the future steps to move forward. Many a worthy endeavour has never got off the ground through the fear that the exact method of achieving it is not known! It is always possible to identify the very first step and once this is taken the details of further steps are then naturally revealed.

Barriers and Bottlenecks
Is there always one thing you get stuck on? Is there a pattern to the factors that cause you to come to a screeching halt? Are you procrastinating about anything at the moment? Procrastination is a very common manifestation of intangible fear.

The best way to overcome any barriers to your progress is to honestly air them with yourself. Sit down with pen and paper and try this exercise:

• List any and all of the fears you have about the task in hand. It doesn't matter how trivial or stupid they are. Examples may be: "I'm afraid that I won't be able to finish it on time", or "I'm embarrassed about what my colleagues might think", or "What would my mother say?"
• Is there any resentment linked to the task? List these too. Perhaps you're fed up because you're not being paid enough for the task, or because your partner isn't supporting you with it.
• Ask yourself what you stand to gain by not doing the task? If you let yourself off the hook what will happen?
• What do you stand to gain if you do get it done? How will it feel to have outwitted your fear and nervousness? How will you reward yourself for having such a victorious outcome?

Now you know what your fears are perhaps you can mitigate them by breaking the task down into even smaller steps and do the easiest pieces first. Perhaps the above exercise has revealed that you need to have a conversation with a friend or relative to ask for their support, or for their help? Or maybe you've realised that if you just had a couple of extra hours of childcare then this would free you up to move forward again - make getting the childcare one of your smaller steps and you're back in business!

Be excited
One of my favourites for beating fear is to replace the phrase "I am frightened by." with "I am excited by.". This taps into the fact that the physical and emotional feeling of fear is often very similar to that experienced when you are very excited about something. Secondly, on a lighter note, it is very difficult to say the word 'excited' without smiling a little and this helps to shift your underlying feeling from a negative to a positive emotion!

And finally.
Be patient with yourself and treat yourself kindly. Rome wasn't built in a day! Keep those steps small, regular and manageable and don't forget to review how much you have already achieved. If you need help then ask for it as no one can do everything alone. Seek inspiration from a mentor, a coach or someone you know who has won a similar battle. Celebrate your success and achievement with those that you love.

Cali Bird is a life coach, writer and speaker. She runs the personal development practice called Lead The Life You Want To Lead. For further details see www.leadthelife.net or phone Cali on 020 7401 2633

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