Have you ever decided that it’s finally time to take action on that thing that you’ve always wanted to do only to be inundated with a paralyzing fear or feeling of overwhelm that stops you dead in your tracks?

Maybe it’s painting a mural on your kid’s wall, or planting an organic garden of veggies in your backyard, starting a home business, or writing a book; whatever it is you’ve been wanting to get started doing but have had difficulty amping up your ‘getting started’ juices. But you’ve finally worked up the motivation to do it and just before you get ready to take that first action you are flooded with thoughts like “What if I fail? What if I’m really bad at this? Who am I to think I could paint a life size painting? Who am I to write a book? I will never be able to tend a garden. I should just stop now before I even have the opportunity to fail.”

If you know what I’m talking about, and I know you probably do, then I want you to know you are not alone in this. We all have these fears and these limiting beliefs. It took the famous inventor, Thomas Edison, over 1,000 attempts to successfully create the light bulb; but, instead of giving up he kept pursuing his desire to invent the light bulb. He said “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

Ask yourself “What if I don’t fail? What if I’m an overwhelming success at painting, or gardening, or writing a book?” and add to that “Even if I do fail at first, imagine how much better I’ll be equipped to begin again!”

This week I encourage you to take a look at the list of things you’ve always wanted to do and just start. Just take one little tiny action daily toward getting that thing done. If it’s gardening, go and buy some organic potting soil, if it’s painting a mural then sketch out some ideas. If writing a book is your thing, then start by writing an outline or just sitting down to your computer and start typing. Get something done and see how the energy of actually doing that which you’ve always wanted to do pulls you forward to your goal! It’s a really exciting feeling to create something from a space of diving in head first, so go ahead and let yourself get excited. Even if you fail at first, it’ll be an exciting journey; and as Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Life is a journey, not a destination.”