The Advice I Gave (But Never Took)

I know it’s been a while since I really wrote anything of substance.  I’m sure you’re tired of following my goal progress every week and are wondering what’s going on.  I have to just be completely honest with myself and with you.  I am frequently finding myself paralyzed by fear.  The funny thing is that I just wrote a book on fear and how to overcome fear, and here I sit having wasted so much time fighting some of the things I’ve been needing to do the most.

The truth is that we all dole out advice to others and then never take the advice ourselves, am I right?

It’s easy to look from the outside in and give wise advice, but when it comes to thinking about how to handle things in our own lives, somehow we perceive things as “different.”  Or else we just let emotions take over and stampede all over our hearts (and sometimes our brains).

The trick really is to not let our feelings interfere with what we know in our hearts (or our brains) what we’re supposed to do.  We can’t let our feelings teach us that it’s okay to be irrational, because it’s not really okay.  If we continue this way for too long, we’ll have wasted our lives on our feelings and wonder how the heck we ended up where we are and how on earth we can change directions.  No one wants to look back on his/her life and realize that it was wasted.

I’ve realized lately that I’ve just been wasting my time being all irrational and selfish and scared about nothing in particular.  Maybe scared about the negative things that people have to say (because, believe me, they say them).  Or scared that I won’t reach the goals I’ve set (which doesn’t make any sense, because I can’t reach my goals if I’m not pursuing them).  Or scared, really, just to reveal who I am.  Because I’ve always been afraid of that.

So here I am pouring my heart to you and admitting that I’ve been a failure here.  But I’ve been thinking about things and am trying to fight the feelings to push through the difficult parts of everything.  To do what I’m meant to do.  To do what I love.

Now, if you find I am missing, it’s because I’m deeply entrenched in blog training (yes, there is such a thing).  I’m seeking to make things, bigger, better, brighter for everyone who stops by here, because it’s oh so important for me to be real.  To be honest.  To be open.  Authentic, if you will.  To make your coming here an encouraging experience.  To have you come here and leave encouraged.  That’s the most important thing today.

And I hope that after reading this you’ve realized that you’re not alone if you’re paralyzed by fear.  If you’ve been fighting things you know you’re supposed to do.  If you’re stuck worrying about whether people will like you or not or whether you’ll fail or not.  You’re so not alone.  Because even the experts on fear can sometimes falter.  Even those who know all about how to overcome fear can allow fear to creep into their lives and strip them of their ultimate responsibility.

So if you’ve realized today that this is where you are, I want you to walk with me.  I want you to take action against your fear and decide that now is the time to stop letting it overtake you.  Decide to press forward despite the obstacles and persevere through the fear until you reach success.

Then keep going.