Today during a coaching session it occurred to me that the biggest obstacle I experience is fear. There are a lot of things I fear and it has been running my life since I was very little. Often times I want to do something but I stop myself because of fear. I am not sure what I fear some times, but what I do know is that I often regret making decisions based (or the lack of decisions) due to fear.

I think it is easier to resort to fear because it gives me a reason why things will not work out.  If there is always a reason why things doesn’t work out, then I don’t have to be responsible and therefore I won’t look bad.

Ah! There it is! I am afraid of looking bad!  I want to look good.  I don’t want to look bad.

I am a hypocrite! I keep telling others that I don’t care how people think of me (since I often don’t bother wearing nice clothes or shoes) but in actual fact I do care about how good I look in other areas of my life.  This is especially so in my career and maybe perhaps even my family.  I hate to sound egotistical but secretly I am quite proud of the gorgeous husband I found and the good looking kids he help produced (hee hee).

I guess this is not that much of a secret now…

So what have I really learned about myself?  Many of my decisions are based on fear of looking bad.  In fact, sometimes I prefer inaction over action because I am afraid that my actions will look bad.  But at the end of the day, I am the one that feels really sorry for myself because I haven’t done anything fun / meaningful.  I don’t want to go out and fail but when I am lying in my death bed I may feel like I have failed.  Maybe the fear of looking bad to myself when I am old and wrinkly (assuming I live that long) will get me going…