#77: Identify the 5 Reasons You're Choosing to Stay Stuck and How to Overcome Them
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• It's easier to keep doing what we're doing and stay stuck.  Making changes is hard, much harder. We all want the easy road, so we choose to stay stuck.

• If nothing changes, nothing changes. Ask yourself how happy you are with your current circumstances. Spoiler alert, you wouldn't be listening to this podcast if you were completely content with the way things are going.

• We're afraid of the unknown which is really a fear of failure (me trying out for Annie)Accept that there will be fear with change. Expect it, invite it in. Dance with the fear, whisper in his ear that you know he'll always be there, but you're choosing a new partner called courage. If you're a writer, write a letter to fear, and without giving it too much thought, let fear respond.  See this exercise from Elizabeth Gilbert.  )To minimize fear, take tiny steps, bite-sized steps. When I thought about starting a podcast, I got overwhelmed with the big picture, it was too big and too scary.  Instead of focusing on cover art, music, photo, social media, recording a trailer, buying a microphone, etc, I recorded a trailer.  Take it one step at a time.  Expect fear to be there for each step.  Give him a nod and keep movin'.

• We'd have only ourselves to blame if things didn't go right. As long as we play it safe and don't act, we can keep blaming others for us being stuck.  We can blame our circumstances, our kids, our spouse, etc. My mom dreamt of dancing in high heel tap shoes.  She didn't blame not being able to do this at her age, having three kids, or a full-time job as a teacher, she signed up for class, bought her shoes, and tapped away.

• Friends and family expect us to be a certain way and to do things a certain way. If we change, we might disappoint them. An example is the Biggest Loser contestant who felt like he was leaving his mother behind after he lost a lot of weight.  He felt her disapproval, so he gained the weight back. We're the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with, so decide who you want in your front row.   Decide who you're going to let influence your decisions.  Decide who you want to surround yourself with and ultimately, decide if this is your life you're living or theirs. The #1 regret of the dying is that they didn't live life on their own terms.  They lived it on others' terms.

• We hold off doing things NOW because we think we can always do them LATER. We assume we can wait on our dreams.  We put them off.  How often do you hear about people who retire and within 6 months they have a stroke or develop cancer and never get a chance to live out their dream retirement? Write a letter to your future self at www.futureme.org )Watch Jerry Seinfeld) describe the two conflicting selves (he uses "Morning Guy" and "Night Guy" but you can substitute Future Me and Present Me.

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