Face the fear and do it anyway

What's stopping you achieving your goals? Often it can come down to something as simple and insignificant as fear.  Insignificant I hear you ask?  Surely fear is with us to protect us from danger, to exercise our fight or flight mechanism, to allow us to live longer by staying out of the way of things that may harm us. OK, agreed, but is the fear of speaking to that senior leader about mentoring you or addressing concerns you have with your line manager really going to end your life?  No of course not.  Sometimes we build so much fear around doing something that may make us feel uncomfortable that we give life to it. That taking charge of our own lives and challenging our perceptions of ourselves will in some way harm us. It all comes back to that childhood indoctrination - don't step out of line, speak when you're spoken to, don't blow your own trumpet. Well, who else is going to do it for you? The only time we have is now so why not start by squaring up to your own fears and perceived limitations and start the fan fare. What's the worst that can happen?  Someone says "turn down the volume"? OK, but you can still keep playing the tune, perhaps just in a different way. Life is all about testing and learning and you are your best teacher.