Sometimes ideas for blog posts just completely randomly come to me. This week I decided to write about fear and how it can hold us back. There is no set reason that came to me this week but I figured it would be a great topic to write about and put a positive spin on. 

Sit and think for a few moments about all of the causes of fear in your life. A huge one for me was my fear of learning to drive for a very long time. For years I watched all my friends my age go right out to take their written learner's permit test and then right into the road test to get their official license. I did not take my learner's permit test until I was 19 and I did not take my road test for years following at 24. The only thing holding me back was fear. Looking back now I regret waiting so long. I am so completely comfortable driving now and love the independence of being able to go where I need to go when I need to, and not needing to wait around for someone to take me. Fear held me back from that for a very long time.

Another great example that I know a lot of people will relate to was fear of joining and going to a gym. Being someone at a visibly high weight I absolutely had no desire to ever start going to a gym. When I first started making sure I was exercising I started out with the Wii Fit and other home workouts. Those are and were of course great and I lost a good amount of weight doing that, but eventually it was no longer challenging to me. I was letting my fear of funny looks and judgements keep me from going to the gym. As you all probably know I now go to the gym on a very frequent basis and work with a personal trainer. I started off slow and went with Steph but when our schedules started clashing I had to be responsible to go on my own. I soon came to realize that most people at the gym are not concerned with the people around them at all, myself included. I go to the gym and get my workout done and leave. Sure I interact with people here and there but for the most part I keep to myself. Fear of people's judgements should not be holding you back from the gym because chances are they are not paying much attention to you.

Those were just a few specific examples in my life but I think fear holds all of us back to some degree. Sure there are more obvious ways such as not wanting to take a public speaking class in college because you fear presentations, or the fear of sky diving etc. but there are so many not as obvious reasons as well. Maybe you have been worried about putting yourself out there more in search or a new relationship. Maybe you are scared to open yourself up more to the world. Maybe you a nervous to speak to your boss about a well deserved raise. I could go on and on. I am sure if you look deep inside of yourself you can think of plenty of things in your life that fear is holding you back from.

My advice would be to try and put fear aside and jump into something new. I personally need to take this advice a little head on myself sometimes. I write for this page to share the journey I am on both in my weight-loss and my positivity. I never claimed to be perfect and to be living a purely positive life every single day. We are all works in progress, but I digress. Try not to let fear hold you back. Ask those fearful questions to the people around us. Try out a new activity you were worried about trying before. Tell somebody exactly how you feel about them. Do your very best to live without fear. It will always be in our lives, but we can do our very best to not allow it to control us.