I can’t count the number of times someone has said to me “oh, I can’t do that, what would people think? They don’t get it that the other person is too worried about what people are thinking about them.

Instead we can imprison ourselves in a small box, fearful of venturing out lest the world will think of us in an unflattering light. We don’t realize the penalties we are inflicting upon ourselves by this action.

I have had coaching clients give me variations of the above scenario, and in particular, fall upon the excuse of what their parents might think. Here is the sad truth, many of these clients are 40, 50 or even 60 years old. Way too old to be concerned about living their lives in the shadow of someone else’s opinion. And even more tragic is when their parents are no longer alive. They still hold onto the fear of what these now deceased parents might think of them!

How come we continue to live this way? For many I believe it can be summed up in a variety of ways such as a habit that has been perpetuating for far too long. For others it might be that even though there is pain and fear associated with taking the chance to truly live as if other people’s opinions don’t matter, it is not enough pain to draw us into action.

Where are you restricting yourself in living the life you want because you fear the opinion of a spouse, parent, teacher, friend, colleague, boss or worse yet someone you don’t even know. Imagine what might be possible in your life if you elected to follow your heart and instead gave little heed to the opinions of others?

Right away you know that she is a woman of courage to be in this situation. But what impressed me the most was hearing her story of recent events. A week prior to meeting her, Alissa arrived with about 50 other men for training in northern Ontario that would involve living in the bush for one week taking part in warfare training, sleeping on a mountain, learning survival techniques and flying in a helicopter amongst an array of other activities.

Four days before Alissa was due to leave for Canada she and her fiancé were involved in a terrible car accident in Bermuda. I saw all the bruises and scraps she was still carrying so I can only imagine how difficult it must have been carrying a ruck sack full of supplies, body armor and a gun for one week weighing more than 60lbs in total.

But that wasn’t what impressed me the most. It was the fact that her fiancé had died in the crash and that she had made the painful decision to still leave four days later to take part in these maneuvers. Due to timing it meant that she would not even be there for his funeral. Her commanding officers had tried to dissuade her from going to the training camp because of what had transpired.

Alissa however knew that she had made a commitment to herself, her late fiancé and her regiment to be there, no matter what.

How many of us would have been strong enough to follow through on our commitment under such circumstances? For many of us it would have been easier to stay home and not step up to our commitment.

On the second day of training, Alissa hit a mental wall and was ready to quit and come home. However she had inspired the rest of her fellow troops who would not let her leave because of how far she had come, not geographically but emotionally and spiritually. Instead they lifted her up and supported her so that she might complete her junior officer training and graduate next month as a Lance Corporal in the Bermuda Regiment.

The evening they arrived in Toronto for their celebration dinner I sat across from Alissa as the entire troop stood and gave her a standing ovation. I looked at many of those faces who witnessed that she had indeed inspired them to push themselves a little further in future and step up in a bigger way in their own lives.

Thank you Alissa for inspiring me!

This past Friday his dream was realized, as he took centre stage to deliver his act.

I went to his website www.dyingtodoletterman.com and watched his short video which details what he has done to realize this long held dream. I especially like the latest title of his blog ‘dream complete’.

How many of us have given up on our dreams and goals, thinking that they probably will never be accomplished. Yes this man, who given a different attitude could have felt sorry for himself and given up of ever standing under the lights of the Ed Sullivan Theatre in New York city.

Steve thanks his many supporters for helping him and I reflect on my personal belief that one person can make a difference. In this case many ‘one persons’ banded together to send letters and emails to the Letterman producers to request Mazan appearing on the show.

I love his quote “If you stop chasing your dream, you’re already dead”

Watch this link to the show on September 4, 2009 to see how he did. http://tinyurl.com/kqub5b

He truly is inspirational!

What dreams and goals do you have inside you, yet to be fulfilled?

My point here is, how much stuff do we really need and how complicated does it make our life? Not only do I have to clean the bottles when they get dusty but I have to decide which one to wear each day. The question begs ‘if I had fewer bottles, would my life be simpler’? Certainly I would have a few extra dollars in my pocket.

We wonder why we seem so stressed these days, but if we took some time to look at how we are living our lives, both personally and professionally I am sure you would find that we have complicated it somehow. By having all these extra possessions, responsibilities, technology etc are we preventing ourselves from living an easier and simpler life, whilst trying to convince ourselves that all this accumulation and expectation is actually there to somehow help us and make our lives better?

A couple of months ago I was cleaning out the cupboard under the sink and realized that I had all different types of cleaners for all different types of things that needed cleaning. I wondered if I really needed all of this stuff, as some of it was hardly used. Might there be a couple of cleaners that would do all the cleaning of so many other products? Why take up all that space and have to lug it around my home when a simpler approach might be better?

 Where in your life, right now, could you simplify something either at home, work or elsewhere? What could you change if you wanted to, so as to relieve some of the overwhelm you experience? I believe that deep down we all know that we have to take responsibility for how our lives are running. We can’t keep blaming our boss, spouse, family or society for all the stress and overload we are feeling.

Has the world become so busy now that we tolerate bad behaviour, lack of proper hygiene from food servers, people not getting back to us when they promise to, or not having our emails replied to once we have purchased a service.

I finally got tired of the bad service I was getting and starting calling the head offices of those companies. Mostly they were all very appreciative of my call, and for the chance to correct the situation and hopefully win back my business.

But it got me thinking of where we settle for things in our life or where we think we have no control over the situation. Sure I can’t control if a food server at a fast food restaurant is running her hands through her hair and touching money before she touches my food. But I can decide not to take the food and then call the head office over the lack of hygiene from one of their workers in a very busy downtown location.

I might not be able to stop a store clerk from ranting and raving to me in front of other customers but I can decide to walk away and then call the general manager of the store to complain.

Why do we put up with things in our life that are less than what we want? Is it that we have just lowered our standards of what is acceptable, or are we feeling like we don’t deserve more or better?

And of course I am not really referring to customer service here, but really questioning how much we settle for things in our lives.

Think about what you are settling for in your life? How is it holding you back and what are you missing out on?

I