7 easy things you can do to release anxiety (immediately)

In the past years, I’ve worked really hard to overcome my anxieties, to stop the worry chatter in my head. Along the way, through my coaching practice, I’ve also helped a lot of women overcome their anxieties, fears, worries.

Through this work, I’ve learned that anxiety can be lessened, sometimes even cured entirely, but that to do so you need to change one or more aspects of your life.

What Is Anxiety?

Anxiety is a terribly unpleasant feeling of fear, worry or even panic. When we’re anxious we feel stressed out, our heart pounds in our chest, our breathing changes, our mind goes into overdrive, with what seems like millions of thoughts per second. Or we’re so focused on one fearful thought or experience, that we can’t get it out of our head, as if it was haunting us! We get up with it in the morning, we go to bed with it at night. This can last for hours, days, weeks on end. Believe me, I know, I’ve been there many times.

The thing is, everyone experiences anxiety sometimes. We all inevitably worry about ordinary, day-to-day issues, such as health, family, work, money. That’s perfectly OK.

When Fear Or Worry Won’t Let Go

The problem starts when you can’t seem to shake a fearful, negative thought or when – even after a particular experience has ended – it remains in your mind, and you still worry about it. Another expression of anxiety, one that I struggled with for a long time (still do sometimes) is worrying about all possible, negative scenarios concerning an experience (past or present), a person, or a thing.

Most of the excessive worry is irrational, yet the fear or worry won’t let go. Unpleasant to say the least, often difficult to live with, anxiety can be mild or strong depending on a number of factors, ranging from higher emotional awareness, sensitivity to stress, family history, trauma, or even genes.

Your environment, what you eat, the amount of sleep you get, the people you surround yourself with… all of these things can also have an impact on your level of anxiety.

7 Easy Things You Can Do To Release Anxiety (Immediately)

Throughout the years I’ve learned how to deal with my anxiety, and worry much more efficiently. The good news is, there are simple and effective ways to get rid of big chunks of anxiety, calm the brain, relax the body, get back on track with your life. Some start working right away, while others need more practice, may help lessen anxiety over time.

1. Get Enough Sleep

Women often don’t get as much sleep as they need or don’t sleep well. But sleep is designed specifically to help control stress. It’s something you should never skip on purpose.

Go to bed at the same time each night and wake up at the same time each morning (even on the weekends). Try to schedule a full seven to nine hours of snooze time every day.

When I don’t get my eight hours of sleep I’m not just tired, I’m more anxious too, I even get a tat depressed (another symptom of anxiety to some people).

2. Eat Well-Balanced Meals

Give the body the support it needs. You should limit your intake of rich, fatty, or spicy food, especially during your evening meal.

Try to eat more products that contain vitamin B, omega-3s, healthy whole-grain carbohydrates.

A morning glass of green juice can get you on the right side of calm. You can try this recipe (which is one of my favorites) for a guaranteed mood-booster: combine one banana or green apple, sliced ginger, a bunch of kale, one lime, cucumber slices, a few ice cubes, a cup of water to a blender or juicer. For more protein add an egg, yogurt, nuts, or protein powder.

3. Get Rid of Clutter

A messy workspace or home can make it difficult to relax. Make a habit of keeping things clean and anxiety-free. Take 10 minutes to tidy up your living space or work area every day. I don’t do this nearly enough, but when I do the feeling of bliss that comes over me when things are neat and tidy is incredible.

If you have too much stuff cluttering up your living or work space, try this quick hack for instant clean-up madness:

• Choose just one drawer, cabinet or closet to clean out

• Take everything out

• Categorize the stuff you don’t use (I usually get rid of anything I haven’t used for four consecutive seasons) by making three piles for items to throw away, to donate, to sell

• Only put back the stuff you use

• Get rid of the throw-aways immediately, mark your calendar for the ones to donate or to sell

4. Meditate

Meditation or mindfulness training can help you learn how to better cope with stress. One aspect of anxiety is racing thoughts that won’t go away. Meditation helps with this part of the problem by quieting the overactive mind. Or it will teach you how to not let yourself be affected by your thoughts, which is my case.

Give yourself the gift of serenity, start the day with 10 to 20 minutes of solitude and positive energy.

I’m a big fan of transcendental meditation. It has helped with my anxiety tremendously, amazing results from a practice of two times 20 minutes a day.

5. Hold Your Breath

Yoga breathing has been shown to be effective in lowering stress and anxiety. There is a classic yoga breathing technique “The 4-7-8 Breathing Exercise”, also called “The Relaxing Breath”. This was one of the first breathing techniques I was every introduced too, long before I was practicing transcendental meditation, or any other effective anxiety-relieving method, I was using this technique successfully.

One reason it works is that you can’t breathe deeply and be anxious at the same time. How great, right? To do the 4-7-8 breath:

• Sit comfortably in a straight up position.

• Exhale through your mouth, making a ‘whoosh’ sound.

• Close your mouth, inhale quietly through your nose for 4 seconds.

• Hold your breath for 7 seconds.

• Exhale through your mouth, making a whoosh sound for 8 seconds.

• This is one breath. Now inhale again, repeat the cycle three more times for a total of four breaths.

6. Get Hot

Heating up your body reduces muscle tension, anxiety. One of the symptoms of my anxiety has always been muscle stiffness. When I get stressed, my muscles contract without me realizing it. This puts a lot of pressure on my body.

Take a long bath or hot shower, you may find that your anxiety decreases right away (it does with me).

Warming up may be one of the ways that exercise – not to mention curling up by a fire with a cozy cup of tea – boosts your mood.

7. Create a Vision Board for Your Anxiety-Free Life

If you believe that positive things are going to happen, they usually do! I’m a big believer in visualization. One way to enjoy the benefits of visualization is to create a vision board. This is a type of blueprint for the kind of life you’d like to create for yourself.

It’s important to make sure that your vision board not only holds the vision you have for your life, but also reflects the feelings you want to see come forward when you’re actually enjoying that life, looking at the board.

When it comes to anxiety, your vision board should be about things that calm you down. Sounds crazy, I know, but it really does work!

You can also try to make an e-vision board using Pinterest for some Pinspiration. Keep this vision board within your reach. Look at it with love, know that each time you see it, you’ll feel grounded, happy, calm.

Remember, life isn’t something to take too seriously. Often when we worry, that’s all we do. Everything is so serious, so scary, so fearful. When I’m working my way through anxiety, I try to remember to make time to do something I truly enjoy: read a book, talk to a friend, craft, learn something new.

Especially when your anxious, it’s important to find balance in your life focus on the good things that surround you.

Looking forward to hearing from you below. So do tell me, what works to reduce your anxiety? How do you deal with worry?

FREE MEMBERS: DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE ANXIETY WORKSHEET

Did you know that free members of The Sisterhood Collective get access to my free resources library? To become a member, and download your free anxiety worksheet, simply click on the picture below.

How to overcome your fear of conflict

For as long as I can remember, I hated conflict. Until well into my adulthood, I was unable to confront anyone about anything in a more or less decent way. I would keep things bottled up for as long as I could, until there wasn’t any room left to bottle any more. Then, everything would come out. In those moments I’d change from a nice, and understanding woman into a nasty, and irrational version of myself.

After a confrontation had taken place, when I would calm down, my opponents would tell me that I couldn’t handle criticism, that there was no way to reason with me during those phases of anger. And of course they were right.

Fear of conflict is a complex issue

It took me a long time to see that I had an issue with conflict. I thought I was good at it, strengthened by the fact that I had almost no conflict in my life. Until I understood that it was not diplomatic skills, or perfect negotiation abilities that made it so, but rather that I did everything I could to avoid conflict. Always. Everywhere. At all costs.

As a recovering people-pleaser, and a highly sensitive person, I’ve come to believe that my fear of conflict shares its origin with my people-pleasing, and perfectionistic tendencies. In fact, I’ve been able to pinpoint four factors that greatly contributed to me being so afraid of conflict:

#1 I’ve had to deal with conflict growing up

Throughout my childhood, I’ve been witness to, and victim of conflict, mostly because of the recurring, often hurtful confrontations between my parents. So my childhood didn’t feel safe. In fact, I grew up in an environment where emotions weren’t dealt with properly, where anger wasn’t allowed, where anxiety was all around. As a result, I’d become totally conflict averse, and have not learned to stand up for myself in a healthy, positive way.

#2 Unresolved conflict shaped me as a people-pleaser

Because conflict was never resolved at home – just suppressed until the next outburst – early on I started to internalize this conflict anxiety until I believed all of it was my fault. I became a people-pleaser as a means to try and solve the recurring conflicts. Of course other events, and experiences helped shape my people-pleasing behavior, but consistently being exposed to lingering conflict at such an early age definitely played a big part in it. Trying to please everyone became so important to me, that I couldn’t stand the idea of someone being mad at me. So I became even more afraid of conflict. How ironic, right?

#3 People-pleasing led to perfectionism

Trying to please everyone all the time quickly led to perfectionism. As much as I hated the idea of anyone being mad at me, I hated the idea of losing self-control even more. Still in an effort to resolve the conflicts at home, through people-pleasing trials and errors that led me nowhere, I developed a cruel version of a perfect self. I convinced myself that once I’d be that girl, all would finally be well. But because that girl didn’t get angry, was always composed, accepted everything without complaining it became impossible for me to stand up for myself. By this stage I wasn’t just afraid of conflict, I’d also rationalized why it was imperative to avoid it at all costs.

#4 Avoidance of conflict hurt my self-confidence

Growing up with unresolved, lingering conflict, and developing people-pleasing behavior, I wasn’t able to build a strong foundation for self-confidence. When you keep on trying to fix something that is not in your power to fix, and keep blaming yourself for it, you’re like Sisyphus, eternally trying to roll a rock up a mountain. I felt something was deeply wrong with me, otherwise why would this situation persist? This only made things worse. I wasn’t just afraid of someone being mad at me, or of shattering the picture-perfect image of myself. Because of my low self-confidence I also became terrified of the result of confrontations. Because of my lack of self-confidence, the potential retaliation was unbearable to me, a source of much of my anxieties. Having never witnessed conflict being resolved in a positive way, I was terrified by what the other person would do when I stood up for myself by confronting them.

How to overcome your fear of conflict

In my case, the healing process started when I understood the underlying dynamics that caused me to fear conflict so much. By doing that work I was confronted with my lack of self-confidence, self-worth, and self-love.

Having worked my way through understanding fear, overcoming fear, and helping my clients get through their fears, I believe (as Susan Jeffers so beautifully said in her magnificent book Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway) that all our fears come down to one and the same thing: we’re all afraid we won’t be able to handle it. That we’ll be all alone.

What if I told you that from now on until the end of your life, whatever comes your way, good or bad, you’ll be able to handle it. Would you be afraid of anything?

Probably not.

But when you lack self-confidence, self-worth, and self-love like I did, it’s hard to believe that you can handle anything, let alone conflict. So you’re afraid of it. Like I was. And you don’t engage in it, desperately trying to avoid:

• people thinking bad of you,

• people not liking you,

• people seeing through your picture-perfect self,

• people retaliating,

• and so on…

… so that you could finally be loved, because you’ve convinced yourself you’re not lovable to begin with.

The way out of fear is through self-confidence (and self-love)

Conflict is unavoidable. You’re not alone on the planet, there are people all around you at work, and at home. You’re a social being that interacts with other social beings. So you’re bound to run into things that are unpleasant, and that you need to defend yourself for, or confront another person about. And that’s OK. It happens every day all around the world.

Some people are actually pretty good at handling conflict, and resolving confrontations in a positive way. What differentiates those people from how I used to be is their level of self-confidence.

When they confront someone, their self is not in jeopardy. Whatever comes out of that conflict will not dictate how much people love them, or more importantly, how much they love themselves. By believing in themselves first, and having a healthy dose of self-confidence, self-worth, and self-esteem, these people can work their way through conflict in a healthy way.

Self-confidence means trusting yourself

Whatever your level of self-confidence today, you have the ability to work on dealing with conflict more easily. And it all starts with trusting yourself.

The more you believe in yourself, the less you’ll be affected by:

• what other people think of you,

• by people not liking,

• by not being perfect all the time,

• by how people might retaliate,

• and so on…

Or, as Gary Vaynerchuk says (slightly paraphrasing here Gary, hope that’s OK), they put zero weight into anyone’s opinion about themselves, because they know exactly who they are.

What a powerful statement, right? Bathed in a tremendous amount of self-awareness, self-confidence, self-worth, and self-love. And that’s exactly what you need to focus on to overcome your fear of conflict.

Now it’s your turn. In the comments below, let me know what your biggest fear is when it comes to conflict. How do you deal with it? What’s been helpful when you needed to stand up for yourself?

How to recognize false confidence and what to do about it.

If you’re a little familiar with my blog, you probably know that I’m currently entangled in a rather large financial issue that wrongfully landed on my shoulders.

So far, I’ve been good at dealing with the fears, and anxieties that usually result from such unpleasant affairs. That is, I’ve been good at dealing with it until last week, when the first correspondence about the case made its way into my mailbox, and I was confronted with an account of events that absolutely didn’t match my reality.

I’ve worked hard these past few years to achieve inner peace, and a chatter free mind. And I thought I was on top of it, that I nailed it big time. I even wrote about it a few weeks ago.

Then Friday I get an email. And all of a sudden I’m not so sure anymore. Where I can usually stop the chatter in an instant, my inner voice now lingers on. Instead of quieting down, she becomes louder and louder. That night, I don’t sleep. I can’t keep the voice out of my head, I’m anxious, and afraid.

And I don’t understand why. Then I remember.

I’m a recovering people-pleaser.

For the biggest part of my life the only thing that I wanted was for people to like me, to tell me I did a good job. I spent most of my waking hours trying to look like the perfect picture of myself.

When I was a people-pleaser I dreaded criticism like it was a deadly disease, something I had to avoid at all costs.

Whenever someone would criticize me, it felt like I was dying inside. Being anything short of perfect was unbearable to me. Of course, it was living that way that was unbearable, not the criticism. Trying to achieve perfection in every aspect of my life was so time-consuming that it kept me from focusing on what actually mattered: what I really wanted.

The thing is, I thought that I was over that. I thought I had learned to deal with it, and that I’d become confident enough in myself that I didn’t need that external validation anymore. Until last Friday.

You’re never at the end of your journey

These past few days, I’ve been questioning myself and my so-called confidence, wondering how I could find myself in such a shitty spot again, after having worked on myself for so many years. That’s when I came across a beautiful article about the confidence of visionaries that my fellow BYCA coach, and online buddy Victoria posted on her blog a few weeks ago. In it she talks about what true confidence looks like, and how that differs from what she calls false confidence.

After reading her article it all started to make sense to me. I’m not afraid of the outcome of the issue (I’ve come to terms with that, it’ll be what it’ll be), and I’m not anxious about the process (a very masculine, and structured system with well-defined steps).

No, what bothers me about it is the fact that someone on this earth might think that I’m not perfect after all. Because if I indeed was perfect, so my inner critic tells me, then I wouldn’t be bothered with this issue to begin with, even if I have nothing to do with it, like it’s the case now. Yes I know, total craziness right there! But that’s unfortunately how people-pleasing works.

This is where the concept of false confidence comes in. In her article, Victoria has a beautiful way of putting it. She talks about false confidence as acknowledging and owning your “good” parts, but not your “unacceptable” shady parts. Those parts, as people-pleasers know, are the ones we work so hard to hide – our flaws, weaknesses, and insecurities, afraid that all hell will break loose if anyone ever found out that we’re not perfect after all.

What happened to me last Friday was the harsh reveal of my false confidence. A big slap in the face, yet also one of the most important lessons I got to learn this year (and I do learn a lot of lessons!).

Aversion to criticism leads to aversion to conflict

Being able to recognize this false confidence as the hiding place of my “cured” perfectionism, that only lasts as long as this picture perfect of myself is not being threatened, is very powerful. Add to that the aversion to conflict (in direct connection with the aversion to criticism) that most people-pleasers suffer from, and you can imagine why being wrongfully for something I have to defend myself for, but have nothing to do with, turned out to be the catalyst of this painful realization.

This is the heart of the issue. I was stripped of my false sense of confidence because I was forced to defend myself. Because I’m conflict averse, and have been avoiding conflict so much all my life, I really suck at it.

It brings so many negative feelings up in me, with all of them directed at myself. Including the healthy anger that I might have towards the people or situation putting me into this unpleasant spot.

But there’s no room for blaming others. As a people-pleaser the only one I’m blaming is me. For not being perfect. Because if I was perfect, this wouldn’t be happening to me.

True/deep/real confidence is a state in which we’re all-accepting of ourselves. A state in which we’re not trying to be anything other than we are, and know that – however flawed we may think we are – deep down we know we’re just fine. This doesn’t mean we believe that we’re perfect. We’re all human, remember? What it means is simply that it’s all OK. There’s no perfection to be attained, no rules on how to being human, no external validation to aim for.

In the end there’s only you

When I reminded myself of this, a new sense of calm came over me. The fear, the anxiety that had suddenly showed up subsided. Why? Because they can only exist, and persist in the realm of the imperfect. The realm where you think you need fixing, or aren’t good enough.

As soon as I became all accepting of the fact that I’m not – and will never be – what other people think of me, and that in fact, I am who I am and that’s just fine, my inner critic went to bed. And I was able to sleep again.

If you’re a (recovering) people-pleaser, or you’re on a journey similar to mine, I want you to know that:

• You’re doing great just by recognizing how you operate, and actively working on yourself,

• You’re doing great, even when you think you aren’t, because this is a journey filled with lessons,

• You’re doing great, because people-pleasing or not, you’re fine just the way you are…

I hope these words help you to find more joy, and happiness in your life. In the comments below, let me know what your take is on false confidence. I’d love to hear your story.

Why it’s Important For Women to Gather in Sisterhood. And How to Create it For Yourself.

For the biggest part of my life I wished I was a man.

It wasn’t until a personal tragedy woke me up in 2010, that I realized all I’d done was to live my life in the most masculine way possible.

Very early on in my life I made up my mind about the world, and concluded that being a boy would be so much easier than being a girl. I saw boys play, scream their lungs out, climb trees… and never being reprimanded for it. While I was being told to be careful, not to venture too high, to be quiet, to be nice.

What it’s like to be a woman in a male dominated world

Throughout my childhood I feel that I was groomed to fit into traditional gender roles, but with the added difficulty that I was also told to go out and get a job, to be ambitious, and to make it. I know I’m not alone in this. Especially in the West, millions of women are suffering the results of being brought up in a male dominated culture, where we’re being told that competition, success at all costs, and being the winner can coexist perfectly with our feminine qualities such as compassion and love, and even motherhood.

It simply isn’t so.

Of course it’s true that many women retain their feminine qualities, and that a whole lot of us give birth (duh!), and become mothers, but I’d like to argue that this happens despite the world we live in. Our world does not run on compassion, or love.

Our world runs on oil, not on coconuts; on profit, not on charity; on money, not on gifts; on competition, rather than collaboration; and on opposition, rather than support.

And that’s why women need to gather in sisterhood

Something I realized after having spent years of my life trying to become part of the o’ boys club. It would never happen. I was not a man. And even though I was playing by the rules, living my life, and building my businesses in the most masculine way possible, I was never really one of them.

In a male dominated culture, women can never really win. We start out with a handicap that we can never make up for. Even if we try our hardest, succeed in business, throw all of our compassion and love out the door, and toughen up like we’re supposed to, we’ll never live up to society’s expectations simply because we’ll always just be women.

When I understood this, my world broke open. Having thought of myself as a feminist all my life, I realized I had been the worst one at it. I had tried so hard to be a man that I despised myself for being a woman. In fact, I had forgotten how to be a woman. I had completely alienated myself from my feminine, that I had lost all sense of what it meant to be one.

The power of sisterhood

So I went in search. First of myself and my womanhood, then of my sisters. And what I found was nothing short of extraordinary.

#1 Women need women

After waking up to the fact that it was time to fully be a woman, and ever since I started my coaching practice, I realized how much women need women. Many studies have been devoted to the benefits of friendships, especially among women. In one such study, women with a strong, supportive circle of friends had much greater chances of survival than women who where socially isolated.

But there is more, much more.

#2 Sisterhood means deep, emotional connections

We are all social animals, and women especially thrive better when they have a sense of belonging, and community. Through sisterhood, women are able to make deep, and lasting emotional connections. At it’s most basic level, an emotional connection is how we give and receive the emotional support we all need. Emotional support means you’re being seen, being heard, being understood. It’s one of the most healing things we can experience, and something we get from sisterhood.

#3 Sisterhood is empowering

Science has long established that sisterhood is good for your health. But that’s not the whole story. Sisterhood goes way beyond the realm of the physical. In sisterhood women are empowered. Because in sisterhood you’re essential, and what you say, feel, and think matters. Being supported is a big part of sisterhood. You know others have your back, which allows you to stand in your own power more easily, and become the leader of your own life.

#4 Together is freeing

When women are supported like they are in trustworthy women groups, many of them talk about a new sense of freedom. I’ve spend many hours talking about this with women in my work, and what they often tell me is that they felt as if nobody was judging them, as if they could be themselves 100%. And I love that, because what they’re experiencing is exactly that. Gathered in sisterhood we’re able to shed our masculine skins, and to experience our feminine qualities fully. It’s scary at first, I know it was for me, but being together this way is so freeing! There’s nothing quite like it.

How to create sisterhood for yourself?

When I realized the masculine state I was in, I set myself out to rediscover what it meant to be a woman, and to create a tribe of women to gather with. Although it took a while to accomplish, it really wasn’t all that hard. Since, well… women are all around us!

• Be pro-active about getting in touch with the women in your life: when I decided I wanted women in my life, I took matters into my own hands. Instead of waiting for women to walk into my life (which honestly never happens), I decided to be pro-active about it, and (re)connect with women myself. I called or emailed all the women I’d known throughout my life that I liked, and from there build up relationships with them (again). With some, beautiful friendships emerged while with others, not so much. But that’s totally OK. So much so, that it has become a habit that I really cherish. Whenever I meet a woman that I feel a connection with, I’ll get in touch and see where sisterhood can take me.

• Focus on women, not men: following the previous point, another habit I’ve made my own, is to focus on women, not men in social situations. I feel that this is a very important part of this work – and being a woman actually – that women have not learned. Before, when I was in my masculine, when I would go to a business event or any other social happening, I would mostly talk to men, and give my attention to them. Now I do the opposite, and focus on women. I’ve made some amazing friends this way, and every time it’s a beautiful reminder not only that I am, in fact, a woman, but it also helps me to keep choosing compassion, and love over competition, and fear.

• Choose the women you want to surround yourself with: the saying goes that you become the five people you surround yourself with. I believe the same is true for becoming a powerful woman, and sister. If you’re being as intentional as I am about new female friendships, you have the right to pick who you want to surround yourself with (actually you always have that right). By choosing women that share the same values as you, that uplift you, and love you, you’re allowing powerful forces into your life. And that’s precisely the point!

• Don’t be afraid to go deep, and to love: making deep connections with women is not superficial, it’s not a gathering of women to gossip, to make each other jealous, to exchange platitudes. We have enough of that in the world already, don’t we? No, stepping into the sister circle means that you’re willing to go deep, and to love fully, with all that you are, visible, vulnerable. It’s a conscious choice that you have to make. Sisterhood, deep connections with other women, is not something that happens to you, it’s something that you willfully create.

• Leave our male dominated culture at the door: following the previous point, it’s important to mention that in sisterhood the male dominated world must be left behind. Even during my Sisterhood Retreats, where we come together in powerful, and sometimes very pragmatic gatherings on topics such as mindset, fears, goals, we come at it from a beautiful feminine place. Through sisterhood we unlearn what we’ve been told about the world – that it’s a harsh place for women, where competition and jealousy rule the relationships we have with each other – to come out on the other side anew, empowered, supported, and knowing that we’re not alone in this, and that together we can achieve anything.

If you want to experience how powerful it is to gather this way, why not come to my next Sisterhood Retreat, a yearly event in the heart of Paris (France) for women to come together, support each other, and achieve their goals.

Feeling like you could do more in your business or career if you only had some guidance?

I offer private coaching to help women unleash their inner power and create success on their own terms. With my help, you can learn how to use your feminine power to get what you want in life. You don’t have to do this alone – let me show you the ropes!

Imagine what it would feel like to finally achieve the success you know is possible for yourself. Picture yourself confidently taking charge of any situation and getting what you want out of life. It’s time to make your dreams a reality – sign up for coaching with me today!

Schedule your free session!

How to stop making excuses for yourself

I was talking to a friend last week about how hard it is for her to stay on track with her goals. She came to me desperate to find a schedule that would work for her, claiming she never has enough time to work on her goals.

But more than that, during our conversation I noticed how she kept making excuses for everything that she was unhappy about in her life: the way people treated her, the promotion she didn’t get, the neighborhood she was living in, the bills that kept on piling up. Pretty much everything in her life has nothing to do with her – or so she tells herself. What I told her is that it was time for her to stop making excuses for herself, and time for her to start achieving her goals instead.

We all love making excuses for ourselves

My friend is not alone in this. In fact, we all love to make excuses for ourselves. It’s our go-to habit when fear sets in, keeping it at bay comfortably by convincing ourselves that – although it’s not our fault – we simply cannot do, have, or achieve what it is we claim we so dearly want.

The reasons we rely on excuses may vary, but the results always remain the same: we don’t move forward with our lives, we don’t achieve our goals, we keep ourselves small.

Our excuses make it so easy for us to stay in our comfort zones

As I mentioned above, the reasons why we fall back on excuses may look different, but there is one thing almost all of them come down to: fear. When we start digging into the reasons why we love excuses to much, fear is almost always where we end up at:

• Fear of failure

• Fear of success

• Fear of not being good enough

• Fear of being made responsible

• Fear of the unknown

• Fear of making mistakes

• Fear of change

• Fear of (fill in the blank)

In my own life, I know I’ve kept myself small for so many years because of, well… all of the fears above, and more! I was even afraid to feel fear, and made a point out of avoiding anything that could make me feel uncomfortable. As a result, my comfort zone kept becoming smaller, and smaller, and smaller.

Until one day I realized that anything that remotely affected me with fear – things I had loved doing in the past, like going to amusement parks, or skiing, or even boarding a plane – had unconsciously made it from the fun list to the fear list.

Little by little I had shrunk my comfort zone to the point where it fit into my own pocket. I was devastated.

Our excuses and our fears love to work together

When I realized what I had done, and how much of the goals I wanted to achieve where unattainable for me considering where I was, I started to see a steady pattern between fear and excuses. I came to the conclusion that they love to work together!

Fear will ignite the excuse-o-meter, while our excuses are based on all the false ideas and beliefs we’ve gathered throughout our lives about what it is we can or cannot do. After a while – as I discovered through my own fears – this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: fears lead to excuses, and the more excuses you use the more fearful you become.

Overcoming your fears is the first step to stop making excuses

In order to break the cycle then, you need to work on overcoming your fears. Because the less fearful you are, the less you’ll hide behind excuses. If you don’t, you’ll not only keep yourself from achieving you full potential, and best life, you’ll also have a heap of other issues besides not achieving your goals:

• You’ll start believing so many excuses that there won’t be any room left for creativity and risk in your life

• You’ll reduce your comfort zone until it fits in your pocket

• You’ll become self-centered, and probably very pessimistic

• By relying on excuses you’ll reject taking responsibility for your own life, and actions

• Eventually you’ll probably regret not having taken more chances in your life

Recognizing you’re making excuses is the first step to overcoming your fears

As with most things we do to ourselves, recognizing that we’re doing them is the first step toward change. With excuses it’s no different. But recognizing you’re making excuses for yourself can be difficult, and something that can meet a lot of resistance. With me, it’s definitely been the case. I kept myself small, and kept telling myself why things couldn’t be different, but I never questioned my beliefs.

My daily inner chatter, when thinking about the big dreams and goals I had for myself, would usually sound something like this:

• I don’t have enough time to do it

• I’ll be able to do it when…

• I can’t do it, people will hate me if I do

• I’ll never be able to make a living out of it

• It’s not meant for me

Eventually I started noticing my inner talk. Then one night, when I was contemplating the big dreams I had for myself yet again, she said: you’ll never do it anyway. It was a defining moment in my life.

Redefining excuses as opportunities

That night, I made a list of all the things I had dreamed of doing but never actually done. Or started, but never finished. The list went on and on. Then I made a list of all the things I knew my parents dreamed of doing, but also never did. So I made a pact with myself, and decided to become the watch guard of my goals by noticing when I was making excuses, figuring out what my fears were, then redefining my excuses as opportunities instead:

#1 Ask yourself what kind of excuses you’re telling yourself

What am I telling myself so that I don’t have to do this or that?
What kept me from doing this or that?
I know I want to do this or that, so why am I not doing it?

#2 Identify what fears your excuses are expressing

What am I afraid of?
What do I think will happen if I do this or that?
What does fear look like for me?

#3 Redefine your excuses as opportunities

“I don’t have time” becomes “I have as much time as anyone else”
“I can’t do it, people will hate me if I do” becomes “What’s the worst that can happen?”
“I’ll be ready when” becomes “I’m ready now” or – my favorite – “I’ll never be ready, so I might as well do it now”

By redefining my excuses into opportunities, and always being on the lookout for the ways my fears love to express themselves to me, I’ve been able to overcome so much, and to make so many seemingly impossible things happen in my life.

That is what I want for you too. Don’t let your excuses stop you from achieving anything in your life.

10 easy tricks to overcome indecision and move forward with your life

Over the weekend a dear friend of mine confined in my about how she currently questions everything in her life, making her indecisive about what actions to take to move forward. What ensued was an openhearted discussion about fear, self-confidence, and breaking free from attractive cages. This post aims to further the conversation I had with my friend, and to offer her – and you – some practical ideas on how to overcome indecision to move forward with your life.

But what is indecision, really?

At its core indecision is the inability to make a decision quickly. Often, as is the case with my friend, indecision shows itself as a constant, and recurring questioning of options, without ever (or at least it seems that way) being able to come up with a decision.

The thing about constantly questioning your options is that it all comes down to fear. Yes, I know, here’s the f-word again, but based on my own life, and the work I do with my clients, that’s what I’ve come to believe. When it comes to indecision, the most basic fear is that you’ll make a wrong decision. But that’s not it, really. The fundamental fear that lies behind you being afraid of making a wrong decision, is that you won’t be able to handle the result of what you’ve decided to go for.

From my experience, it’s this fear of losing control that keeps most people from making decisions in the first place.

So here’s clue #1: Indecision is a fear-based reflex, related to:

• Feelings if insecurity.

• Not knowing what you really want.

• Wanting to please others, thus taking them too much into account.

• Rationalizing what you intuitively know to be true.

In all the examples above, fear lies at the root of your indecision.

• What if I make a mistake?

• What if I choose the wrong thing?

• What if people don’t like what I choose?

• What if my intuition is wrong? (I particularly love this one, oh dear, your intuition is almost NEVER wrong!)

As we’ve seen above, the fear of losing control is what really drives us to not make any decisions at all. And the reason why we fear losing control is because we don’t trust ourselves enough to actually handle our lives, and whatever might come our way. So we prefer to stick to the status quo, to what we know, to the life we have rather than the one we know we want to be living. My advice is: don’t. Don’t settle for the attractive cage that you know, but rather go out and seize the life that is yours to live.

There is a pertinent question that can help you to overcome your questioning and tetanizing fear of losing control.

A question that can help open the door of the attractive cage you’ve been living in for so long: What would you choose, if I could promise you the outcome would be all that you dreamed it to be?

Other ways of asking this question include (but are not limited to):

What would you choose:

• If you knew you could not get hurt?

• If you knew you could do it?

• If you knew you could not disappoint anyone?

• If you knew it would end well?

• If you knew it would make you happy?

• If you knew it was the right decision? (yeah, I know, this one’s the kicker)

Well… my guess is, you would simply go out and do it, wouldn’t you?

Clearly, what’s keeping you from making a decision is not your incapability to make sound decisions, or know what’s best for you for that matter, but your lack of trust in yourself.

This brings us to clue #2: Indecision is related to your level of self-confidence.

Bottom line: you don’t trust yourself enough to pull it off (whatever off is), and so you do nothing (or think you do nothing, because staying put is a decision too, more about that below), and you:

• stick to the safe option you’re familiar with,

• or go with what you think people expect you to do,

• or simply do what you think you can handle.

But by doing this you avoid going after what you really want.

In my opinion indecision is a clever way to mask our fears. Basically we can do two things when faced with a decision: we can decide something, or we can pretend we’re not deciding, which – newsflash! – is a decision too, and a terrible one at that. Indecision is giving away the power you hold over your life, giving up on designing it, letting other people take charge of your happiness.

But what if I don’t know what I want?

When I talk about indecision to my clients, I often get a “but I don’t know what I want” in return, claiming that that’s the reason why they’re not choosing, and not the fear of making a bad decision. When they tell me this, I simply have to call them out on it, by asking them the following question:

If you were the only person on the planet, would you know what you wanted?

And guess what? Every single one of my clients is crystal clear on what they want, when they’re the only ones inhabiting the planet!

Now the inquisitive mind must ask… but why is that?

It all comes down to the same thing: self-confidence. When my clients imagine they’re the only ones around, there is no fear of being judged, and so no issue with going for what they want. And the more they imagine themselves in action, the more confident they get.

Enter clue #3: Indecision will only be cured by taking action.

Just like the story of the chicken and the egg, who came first: the decision or indecision? We usually have it all backwards: we think the fear comes first, and when we’ll be sure about what to do next the fear will go away. But the reality is we have to act first, only then will we be able to overcome our indecision. I know it sounds and feels so counter-intuitive, but it simply is the truth.

So now that you know where all this questioning comes from…

10 Easy Tricks To Overcome Indecision And Move Forward With Your Life

• #1. Build up your self-confidence: as we’ve seen above, indecision and lack self-confidence go hand in hand. The more you trust yourself, and know that you can handle whatever comes next, the less indecisive you’ll be (and the less fears you’ll have for that matter!).

• #2. Trust your intuition: she usually knows best, and will lead you towards what is good for you. Try and follow your gut feeling whenever possible, instead of waiting for the right decision to show itself.

• #3. Don’t worry about making mistakes: you will never know for sure that a decision is the right one until you make it. By being OK with making mistakes, you’ll allow yourself the flexibility to not know everything for sure before taking action, which will eventually help you to move forward in life much faster!

• #4. Beware of attractive cages: it’s so easy to accept the status quo, especially when the situation you’re in feels safe, and familiar. But how attractive that cage might be, it’s still a cage. Don’t let fear make you settle for less than what you really want, instead use your fear as a signpost that there’s something for you out there.

• #5. Don’t think too much: this is related to trusting your intuition. The more you allow your rational mind to weigh your options, the less likely you’ll be to overcome your indecision.

• #6. Talk to people: indecision can often be nipped in the butt by gaining knowledge. Make sure you talk to people, and ask as many questions as you can about the options you’re weighing against each other. A word of caution here though: only ask advice from positive people that are knowledgeable about the subject matter! There is nothing to gain from asking your overprotective mom, or your doomsday prepping roommate.

• #7. Don’t wait for others to decide for you: very often indecision leads to giving away our power to someone else. We wait, and hope that situations will improve on their own. You have to realize that you’re always in control, and that nobody can choose for you. Keeping this in mind will ease your indecisiveness, because who wants to wait around for what will never come?

• #8. What’s the worst that could happen? I really love this question, and serve it to almost all of my clients when fear and indecision creeps in. It’s also my go-to mantra when I start to feel out of control, and lack the confidence to move ahead with a decision. Almost always, the worst possible outcome is far better than not deciding anything at all. Try it out for yourself, you’ll see.

• #9. Know that indecision is a decision too: a true a-ha moment right there. Yes, not doing anything, is actually doing something. Knowing this allows a lot of people to actually move on, and make a decision. Because indecision in and of itself is really the weakest position you can find yourself in, isn’t it?

• #10. So just do something: doing something beats doing nothing any time. As we’ve seen above, the only way to move past your fears is to take action. The same goes for your indecision. Very often, choosing something, even if it’s the wrong decision, will allow you to move forward and choose the right one down the line.

I hope these thoughts help you move past indecision. Just so you know, this post was first published as an email to subscribers of my bi-weekly Love Notes. If you enjoy reading my work and want to stay informed, you can sign up here.

5 ways to strengthen your mindset by getting out of your comfort zone

I believe that mindset is everything. It’s what makes you see the world around you in your own unique way.

Mindset is the foundation for all the things that you do in your life, every decision you make, every goal you achieve, how you interact with other people, what the glass looks like to you, how happy, and successful you are. As such, your mind can be your worst enemy as much as it can be your best friend.

Our mindset influences not only the way we think, but also the way we feel, and the way we act. In a way, you might say that everything comes down to your mindset:

• How you perceive the world

• Your level of self-confidence and self-esteem

• How much you love yourself

• The people you allow into your life

• The goals you set for yourself

• The actions that you take to reach your goals

• And so much more…

All of these thoughts, actions, and experiences are guided by your mindset. And this is a beautiful realization. Because even though it might not feel like much, it means that you’re in control, and that no matter what your situation may be today, you have the power to change your life simply by changing how you think.

Is your mindset strong enough to overcome fear?

This is where fear comes in. I believe that depending on whether or not you’re experiencing fear in your life, you’re living in a completely different world. And the way you’re allowing fear to be your guide greatly depends on your mindset.

I speak from experience when I say this. I used to be afraid of practically everything. My mom and dad raised me believing that the outside world was dangerous, and scary, and filled with unknown horrors. I wasn’t allowed to stand on a chair out of fear of falling down, or to roller-blade out of fear of hurting myself, or to play with the kids in the neighborhood out of fear that someone or something might hurt me. To my parents, everything was dangerous.

And I’m not saying this to blame them. Just to make the point that, whatever the beliefs you’re raised with, you can really get out of the fear mindset. And one way to do it – which I practiced extensively to get to where I am now – is stepping out of your comfort zone.

We all love our comfort zone

What’s fun, and easy about comfort zones, is that we all intrinsically know what lies on the other side of them. Even if you think you have no clue, I promise you that you do. It’s all those things that you kind of want to do, but that your inner voice keeps telling you not to. Like talking to the cute guy you stand in line at Starbucks three days out of the week, or the hip-hop dancing class you’d love to enrol in but feel you’re to old for, or that trip to Europe you’ve been wanting to take your entire life but haven’t found the time to.

As I mentioned before, what all of these examples have in common is fear, because what keeps us in the comfort zone is the avoidance of potential discomfort. And when we aim for things we’re not used to doing, or that are a little challenging, or out of the ordinary for us, it makes us feel uncomfortable.

The problem is, we’ve learned to try and make our lives as comfortable as possible, to be risk-averse whenever we can, and to do the things we know best, rather than the ones where not that experienced in. So we’re sticking with the status quo, and don’t question our beliefs. Keeping things as they are, hoping they will never change because having a grip on a so-so or downright shitty situation feels so much better than having to go through uncomfortable and unknown moments.

And you know what? Our minds are great at playing that trick on us. I know because I used to be really good at making danger look insurmountable, while I could sit on a painful nail for a very, very long time before deciding to do anything about the situation.

This comfort zone madness made me pass on great opportunities in the past, and has kept me in some really nerve-wrecking situations for way too long too. Like when I was 18 years old and decided not to take a leap year in the US because I was so afraid of the unknown, or the time that I stayed in a relationship for three long years while I knew from day one that this guy was anything but good for me.

How to step out of your comfort zone to strengthen your mindset?

All of this because of fear. And because my mindset was not strong enough to help me overcome it.

Since then, I’ve come a long way. I can’t really stand sitting on a nail anymore, not even for a few minutes. And I’ve learned to talk back to my fears, and to make sure they don’t control my life.

Out of all the things I did to get to this point, here are 5 simple ideas to strengthen your mindset by getting out of your comfort zone:

• Talk to strangers: Talking to stranger is a wonderful exercise in discomfort. Our culture does not encourage us to talk to strangers, all the contrary. When we’re small we’re told specifically not to do so, and as we grow older we never really grow out of it. I’m sure you’ve experienced the agony of standing in an elevator for too long with someone you don’t know, with the absolutely unbearable silence creeping up on you. By talking to strangers in situations like that, you’ll actually break the uncomfortable moment, and transform it into something else. Something that Kio Stark calls “fleeting intimacy”, something beautiful that not only strengthens your mindset but connects you to other human beings.

• Do something that genuinely scares you: One of the most straightforward ways to strengthen your mindset to overcome fear, is to do something that scares you. It sounds trivial, yet so many people never actually do it. They find excuses, stand by their limiting beliefs, blame their inaction on anyone or anything, while it is common knowledge that consistently doing things that scare you help alleviate your fears.

• Do something you’re used to doing, in a completely different way: We humans love our habits, don’t we? Our brains run on autopilot most of the time, our thought are often the result of our beliefs, we usually react to the same situation the same way. The reason we’re such habit animals is because it’s easy, and right in the middle of our comfort zone. By doing daily things in a completely different way, you’re pushing yourself out of that zone, into discomfort. The autopilot has to be turned off, and you have to take control. This means thinking about new ways of doing something, activating your creativity, and problem-solving skills. But also opening up to the possibility that you won’t do it as well as you normally do, or that maybe you will fail. It doesn’t matter what you pick – the dishes, doing the groceries, walking the dog. What matters is that you do it differently.

• Fail at something: We are all afraid to fail. It’s one of our most fundamental fears. This fear is often associated with a fear of shame, of being ridiculed, criticized for not succeeding. Because of this fear, many wonderful goals are never chased, amazing lives never lived. It’s one of those fears that pop up regularly with my clients, and that we work on a lot. Because when you’re no longer afraid to fail, or comfortable with the potential failure of anything you set out to do, working on your goals and doing the things that really matter to you will be so much easier! So Pick something that you know for sure might not work, and do it anyway.

• Speak up: For many people, saying what they really mean is very uncomfortable. The fear of disappointing others, not being liked, or being ridiculed is often at the root of this issue. But standing up for yourself by speaking your truth is not only a wonderful way to practice stepping out of your comfort zone, it’s also necessary to live a happy life. Practice speaking up by starting with the small and simple conversations. Once you feel comfortable sharing your opinion about trivial things, move up to the more challenging topics and discussions. Go slow, but do go. It will be liberating, that I promise you.

Now I’d love to hear from you. How do you venture out of your comfort zone? What practices do you have that help strengthen your mindset? Let me know in the comments below.