What’s Holding You Back? 5 Ways to Break Free from Mental Barriers

Do the thing you’re afraid of (over and over again). When I was a teen, I loved the movie “The Bodyguard” with Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner. There was a scene I never forgot: the singer is in a cabin in the woods talking with her bodyguard’s father and asks him why his son (the bodyguard) isn’t afraid of anything.The father answers: “when he was a kid, if something scared him, he just did that thing over and over again until the fear went away.” As a teenager, I took that advice to heart and when something scared me, I would just do it over and over again until the fear went away. It really works. (I now know that this is technically called “exposure therapy” and it is very effective at reducing fear).

Get up and go do something. Sometimes people expect that if it’s “meant to be,” it will simply come to them. Well, OK, you can believe that if you want, but life just doesn’t work that way. Action is necessary; you have to put in a little sweat equity to achieve your goals.One of my favorite quotes of all time is from author T. Harv Eker: “If you are only willing to do what’s easy, life will be hard. If you are willing to do what’s hard, life will be easy.” Having the courage to do what it takes and to make difficult decisions will lead you to where you want to be. A great way to get unstuck is to start doing something. That brings us back to No. 1: lots of folks don’t get started because they’re afraid they’ll put in all the hard work and will fail. But if you don’t try, you’ll definitely fail to achieve your goal.