I have asked every person I’ve met in the past year the same question. What’s the one thing that’s holding you back?
When people don’t know how to answer, they freeze. And when they freeze, that’s an answer on its own. Because it tells me that fear is holding them back from answering.
I think fear is the most powerful — and most devastating — force in our lives. It prevents massive change, massive action and massive decision making, and it causes complete inertia.
The inertia that springs from it is what stops people from taking small steps, and giant leaps. But we’re afraid of such minuscule things. We’re afraid the folks at our high school re-union won’t be impressed. We’re afraid people will laugh at us. We’re afraid of not having what we have now. We’re afraid of having something we aren’t certain we want. We’re afraid, we’re afraid and we’re frozen.
So What If Fear Is The One Thing Holding You Back?
If you can recognise that, you can recognise that every other element, factor, person, situation or possibility is something that you can handle. If fear is the only thing holding you back, then fear is the only obstacle, it’s not the laughter or the quarterback or the guy you used to like or the woman who always seems to achieve more than you.
And if it’s not any of them, if they’re not holding you back, what were you afraid of in the first place?
Don’t let fear limit you. Don’t let it stop you. Don’t let it turn innocent shadows into deadly strangers and wild animals, don’t let it turn people who — at their core — are decent human beings into enemies who want to mock you. Because the truth is that fear distorts our reality. Our reality doesn’t create it.
[This post by Jon Westenberg first appeared on Medium and has been reproduced with permission.]
