Let’s talk about fear.

Fear cheers you on as you remain stagnant. It keeps you complacent. It bars you from achieving everything you are capable of. It keeps you hiding in the shadows and cowering away from your incredible potential. It coaxes you into compromising who you are, telling you that you aren’t good enough and that failure is certain. Fear speaks only to your vulnerabilities and never to your strengths.

Fear keeps us glued firmly to where we are rather than pushing us towards where we should be. It keeps us small. It allows us to accept ourselves as average rather than exceptional. It stunts us and encourages us to compromise.

When faced with the possibility of change, fear highlights danger rather than opportunity. It tricks us into thinking that the risk isn’t worth the potential payoff. It deceives us. It tells us that we will never be able to do the things that we wish that we could do. It tells us that our biggest dreams are too big and too far out of our reach.

Fear is smart. It knows just what to say to get us stop dead in our tracks. It speaks to our insecurities. It’s a constant companion and it rages battle within us, pitted up against hope and self-love.

Fear makes us average. It convinces us that what we have is enough but tells us that we ourselves are not enough. It soothes our discontent and quiets our ambition. It assures us that we have enough time and that tomorrow or the next day everything will be better; that if we just hang tough things will change.

Fear makes us judgmental. It breeds resentment and jealousy. It makes us prideful and full of ego and empowers us with an intense need to overcompensate. It allows us to become less of what we are and more of what others think we should be. It makes us feel we have something to prove.

Now, let’s talk about change.

What if we were to cast away fear? What if we imagined our lives where our decisions were not curbed by the possibility of rejection, loss or failure? What if we allowed ourselves to explore who we could be if this excuse or that excuse simply ceased to exist?

What a world that would be. What a life that would be.

Someone much wiser than me once said that you can’t be in fear and faith at the same time. We only get so much time, time which slips away faster and faster each year, time during which we must discover who we are, participate in our lives, and determine the nature of the mark we will leave.

The opportunity to be great is always available to us. It is simply a matter of having enough faith in ourselves to try.

We have the ability to make the choice to change our lives. Not only can we change our own lives, we have the power to change the lives of others. We can make today the day; make today the day that we check our fears and start to fight for everything that lies on the other side of them.

We have the ability to say to fear: I see you and I will not let you stop me. We can be everything we have always wanted to be, if only we can come up with the courage to try.

Dedicated to all of my fearless warriors who inspire me each day to let go of the fear.

xoxo

Sarah