If not now, then when?

 When is the right time to make the transformations that you want to make in your life?

We all have reasons why we might be kicking down the road that thing that we say we really want in life. We’re waiting for the perfect moment to create the perfect life. But when that perfect moment comes, I’d place a large bet on the odds that you’ll have created another “I’ll do it when” excuse not to live the life that you really dream of.

As a coach – and indeed as a consultant too - I hear a lot of reasons why people are holding themselves in inaction until the perfect moment to act magically appears. I hear…

• I’ll do it when I have more money

• I’m just too busy to think about it now

• I’ll work on that when I leave this job

• I’ll do it when my kids leave home

• I’m not really emotionally in the right place right now

• I have to fix myself first

• I need that qualification before I can do the thing

• And many, many more.

Which ones do you recognise in yourself?

When it comes to creating the life that we dream of it can feel like all or nothing. In turn that can lead to a feeling of paralysis.

Let’s say you dream of starting your own business. I suspect you might identify with a few of the excuses reasons on the list above as to why you haven’t yet got that dream in process. You might believe that you need a cash injection, or that you can only do it when you quit your current job. In other words, you hold yourself in inaction by buying into the “either/or” story (either I can have this or I can have that).

What if we switch the script around and instead of “either/or” we go for the “both, and”. How does that new business venture look now? What if broke that goal down into manageable steps? Suddenly you might find yourself on the road to having that business while still being in process with those other things (such as your day job) that you see as barriers.

You could:

• Give your company a name

• Register the company as a legal entity

• Set up a business bank account

• Register your website domain name

• Start doing a start-up version of the thing you want to do (do some consultancy work on the side, sell a small amount of your product on eBay, cater for weekend events as you build up to owning your own restaurant) alongside your existing job or activity

• Do some market-testing with people who represent your ideal customer base

• Brainstorm ideas with friends, family and associates.

You see how there are a great many things that you can do to be in process towards your dream life in very manageable ways? We just have to break it down to smaller steps.

So, here’s the thing: what’s REALLY stopping you then? So far I haven’t told you anything about baby-steps and manageable tasks that you didn’t really already know. And here’s where to get really curious with yourself about what’s actually holding you back. Because the excuses are often just that: excuses. They’re often a cover for the real barrier: the fears that we have about ourselves.

When I dig deeper with my coaching clients we get to the heart of what’s really holding them back. Here are some of the themes that we uncover:

• I’m not committed enough to that vision

• It just doesn’t excite me as much as I say it does

• I’m so scared that I’ll fail to achieve that dream life that it’s easier just to not go for it

• I don’t believe that I’m worthy of living the life that I dream of

• I don’t really even know what my dream life looks like

• I’m afraid that doing this thing will detach me from the identity that I’m attached to right now and that I don’t know what will fill the space (I see this one a lot with workaholics – they’re afraid to imagine a life of work-life balance that they crave because it means imagining a new identity for themselves since theirs is wholly defined by their job)

• It all feels too hard and I don’t believe in my own strength to see this through

• I think people will laugh at me for having this dream.

Now, think hard and get in touch with your feelings too. Do any of these ring true? They might not clunk with you at first, but the secret to really getting on with our dreams is to remove the barriers that fear creates. Because the barrier to living our dream life is only really ourselves, and that barrier is often defined by a form of fear. So, what fear is holding you back and what are you going to do to choose a different path?

If you want to remove the barriers holding you from working towards your dream life, talk to me. It’s all something you can be coached on, and I’d love to work with you to fulfil your dreams.