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“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” ~Les Brown
Fear used to be the driving force in my life.
I didn’t even know that I was living in fear at the time. I hid behind labels like “stress” and “anxiety,” but those are just clinical terms for fear.
Truthfully, my dreams terrified me because they seemed way too big to achieve. At the time, I wanted to excel in my new career, get into the best shape of my life, and create meaningful relationships—and I felt like I had a long way to go.
So naturally, I got really stressed out.
And why, oh why, did it feel okay?
It seems like stress is such commonplace now that we think we’re slackers if we don’t feel tense all the time. But that’s just our fear finding excuses to stick around.
Once I finally realized that stress was just an option, I started looking for a way through it. And I found the answers in a simple Japanese philosophy called Kaizen, which is the practice of continuous improvement through small, consistent steps.
I learned that whenever we’re scared about making change it’s because the steps we’re taking are too big, and these leaps of faith will trigger a life-saving biological response: fear.
But luckily, there’…