5 Signs That You're Holding Yourself Back

When it comes to business, success and life goals, often we are our own worst enemies. As much as we would like to blame the conditions, people and random external factors outside of us, it’s more often than not our own limiting beliefs that are holding us back and keeping us from our goals and dreams. Be it starting a business, traveling the world, making more money or attracting exciting opportunities or experiences into your life, the fastest route to an exciting new future is identifying where hold yourself back and let that shit go once and for all. Here are some obvious warning signs to keep an eye out for.

1. Telling yourself ‘I’m not ready’ or ‘the timing is off’.  As a business coach, I find these two phrases the most frustrating of all. Sure timing can sometimes have something to do with it but more often than not, it’s about getting in the game, preparing yourself and being ready for whatever comes your way. If you’re on the sideline, how can you expect to be thrown the ball? Pull up your socks, put on your uniform and JUST START. The lessons you’ll learn from being in the game are priceless.
2. You hesitate. Early on in my business game, a coach said to me “hesitation = pain.”  I’ve never forgotten it and it’s often the way I motivate myself to take massive action on my goals. Think about it this way, if you’re driving a car or walking on the street and you come to a busy intersection that you need to navigate your way across. You'll likely stop and suss your best options and assess the right time to make your move. But if and when you decide to give it a crack and you get halfway across the intersection and doubt your decision, you hesitate. Now you’re in the danger zone, you’re hesitation has caused you to stop dead in the middle and instead of committing to your decision and moving forward with an outcome, you’re at high risk of being hit by oncoming traffic that isn’t going to slow down for you. You panic and feel fear.  If right now you’re feeling discomfort in your life about a certain decision, it’s likely because you are hesitating about making a choice, you're in the middle of the intersection scared of being hit. Stop putting yourself in a state of stress right now by committing to a choice and watch the relief that comes over you. 
3. You procrastinate. We all know when we’re doing this and most of us are masters at it.  Procrastination sounds like ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’, ‘I don’t have time’, ‘I’m waiting for XYZ,’ complaining, excuses and a low, sheepish tone of voice.  It looks like a stale to-do list that you keep rewriting but never crossing anything off, a journal full of goals that you’ve never seen come to life and a deflated human with low confidence and little to none self-worth. If any of this sounds familiar, the best place to start is with one thing. What's the low hanging fruit you can access with ease or something you can do right now to move you forward? 
4. You haven’t been scared in a while. When was the last time you felt nervous? Put yourself out there in a way that it would hurt if it didn’t work out? That you felt scared or uncomfortable? If the answer wasn’t ‘this week’ than my guess is you’re playing small and not reaching your full potential. Write down three things that would scare or challenge you a little (in a good way) and make a plan to go and do them. When you spend time outside of your comfort zone you grow. Growing is good for you.
5. Nothing new has happened to/for you in a while. Have you noticed that life has been a little stale and a lot of the ‘same old’ for a while now? Yep, it’s a good sign you are running a program that is getting you more of the same. Nothing changes if nothing changes. If you want a new reality for your life, you’re going to have to change it up a little.  Consider taking a class, getting a coach, walking a different way to the coffee shop, putting your phone down and looking up. If you can jolt yourself out of the familiar patterns of your known reality, you create space and opportunity for something/someone new to flow in.

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