What holds us back from taking that next step?

I recently completed another excellent coach training. Towards the end, we played a game where we took turns being blindfolded and visualized the prompts narrated by our teammates. When it was my turn, I had to imagine jumping over three spiders to get to my treasure.

My mind automatically imagined them as monstrous and scary. I was terrified and could feel the uneasiness in my stomach, but I somehow managed to dodge them to get to my treasure. It wasn’t easy.

Later, when I contemplated my experience, I wondered why my mind jumped to the worst possible version of the spiders. The narrator just said spiders, and yet I imagined the scariest of them all. I wondered, where else in my life do I do that?

In the heat of the moment, WHY DID I FORGET THAT I HAD A CHOICE? I could have easily imagined them as tiny spiders and stepped over them without fear.

What influences the unconscious choices that hold us back and make our path harder than it needs to be?

In my case, the spiders I imagined were so dramatically scary as I have been reading Harry Potter with my 8-year-old past few months. So my mind heard spider and directly jumped to Aragog from book 2.

Also, my past conditioning subconsciously made me believe that the path to a treasure is difficult. It should be scary and hard.

So the next time your fear paralyzes you from taking that critical next step - applying for your dream job, starting your dream business, or working on a project that would change how people live forever - slow down and check in with yourself.

What is holding you back?
Is some deep conditioning from your childhood telling you that it can’t be easy?
Are the failed attempts from your past keeping you from trying a different way to reach your goal?
How is your personal life affecting your career and vice versa?
What choices are you not making?

Remember, life can be as easy or complicated as we want. The choice is always ours.

To easier paths,

Nisha