Every day, we face a variety of obstacles to pursuing the Dream that we feel like God has gifted us for, put in our hearts, and given us a desire to see come to pass.

Often it seems like as soon as our feet hit the floor, the distractions start flowing toward us, the obstacles pop up seemingly out of nowhere, and the just-plain difficulty of getting things done wears us down.

### It’s always something… An unexpected email derails our day as we have to attend to some sort of family or work “emergency.” (Quotes around “emergency” because often it’s someone else’s idea of an emergency, but perhaps not ours!)

Other people’s needs, requests, and desires are probably the number one obstacle we face to making the progress we want to make.

And it’s easy to get frustrated with those other people, or do a bit of blaming.

Or perhaps it’s our life-situation in general that’s the obstacle. Kids at home, health challenges, the “day job,” money problems.

Or maybe the people in our life aren’t supportive of the Dream we’re wanting to pursue. From a general lack of enthusiasm to all-out discouraging words, other people’s attitudes can be an obstacle we need to get past.

What about our own lack of… something? Our lack of talent, or skill, or important connections convince us that we can’t move forward. We’re not tall enough, or pretty enough, or confident enough to make it happen.

So many factors outside of our control!

Faced with all these legitimate obstacles, we often get paralyzed in our forward progress. We spend time feeling frustrated at our circumstances or other people, bemoaning the place we find ourselves.

### A quick assignment Go ahead right now and brainstorm a list of every obstacle currently impeding your progress. Use the examples above as a starting point, but really push yourself to think of every obstacle that’s holding you back.

### Your secret weapon Did you make your list? Now here’s a little secret to eliminating all or most of those external obstacles:

For each of the items on your list, as yourself this question… “What am I really afraid of?” You may need to sit with that question for a little while to uncover the answer.

Take each of your obstacles and turn it on its head, revealing that the obstacle is much more about the internal conflict you have going on with your own fears than the external obstacle where you’ve been putting the blame.

“My kids take up so much of my time, there’s nothing left to work on my Dream” becomes I’m afraid I’ll seem like a bad mom if I say no to some of my kids’ wants.

“I’m too tired at the end of the day to even think about my Dream” becomes I’m afraid to push into the discomfort of working even when I’m tired, or perhaps I’m afraid of what others will think if I do what’s needed to pull back and recharge my energy.

“I don’t have the money to spend on taking steps forward” becomes I’m afraid to make changes to my standard of living to free up resources for my Dream.

Hopefully you can immediately see how powerful this exercise can be. We get sidelined by thinking that our problems are all external and that we can’t change them. In reality, much of what stops us comes back to our own internal fears.

Obviously, getting past these fears is another step entirely. But if we can at least reframe our obstacles into the true issue, we have a chance of taking steps forward to overcome them!

(And here’s a bonus tip…

After you’ve reworded your obstacles into fears, read the fear aloud and then say either “so what?” or “do it anyway” at the end. See where that takes you!)

And if you're still hesitating, even after understanding your fears, try downloading the Procrastination Eliminator under the "deeper" link below.