How to strip away fear and observe our true desires

Perhaps you aren’t sure where you have hidden desires or fear in our life.

Try this exercise:

1. STEP 1 List 5 people you know and admire, and something they’ve done (or are doing) that you would want to do if only you were younger, had more money, and/or had more time. Label this column of your list WHAT.
2. STEP 2 Now in a second column – labeled HOW –  write down what it would take for you to actually do it. Are you already feeling dismissive? Hearing yourself think about how impossible it is? That’s your fear talking. You’ve learned to create defensive logic to protect yourself from the feeling of failure.
3. STEP 3 It’s time to recognize those fears for what they are, and see how fear is the true obstacle to get over – not the task itself. In the third column – labeled TO OVERCOME – write down what fears you have about each HOW. What are you afraid of if you actually attempted to do the HOW?

Not all these things are ones that you necessarily want to do right now. The reality is that we do need to pick and choose our battles. We can do anything but we can’t do everything.  But, the purpose of the exercise is to recognize how fears hide our desires by putting up all sorts of objections before we ever really consider whether or not we want something.