What's blocking your path? Part 2

Read Part 1 here.

The acronym GAIL (Gremlins, Assumptions, Interpretations, Limiting beliefs, to refresh your memory) reminded me of a post I wrote last year about holding yourself back. We often fantasize about doing something, but never actually do it because of GAIL. At the time of that post, I had been fantasizing for years about getting back into throwing discus, a sport I competed in during my last two years of high school.

I had lined up a coach through the local track club and was ready to go. Except that the coach completely dropped the ball (or the discus, in this case). Stopped responding to e-mails, stopped returning phone calls. Everyone I spoke to in the sports community, as I scrambled to find a new coach (I had already spent several hundred dollars on equipment and shoes), gave me the same sympathetic response: "Yeah, he's kind of flaky that way. No, I don't know where to find a discus coach." Apparently, discus coaches, even on collegiate track and field teams, are hard to come by.

So over the course of the last year, I have been halfheartedly looking for a coach. I've even contacted club teams in L.A., willing to drive an hour and a half for training. Most people were nice, but couldn't help; some never responded at all.

Two weeks ago, I contacted our local club again, to let them know I was still looking. This time, they were excited to tell me that they have an official coach available to members, and she knows how to coach discus. Still a little skeptical, I reconnected with this coach who was one of the unavailable resources I had contacted last fall.

We had our first session on Tuesday and we'll be meeting again Saturday. And finally, throwing discus is no longer a fantasy! I can't say when I'll be ready to compete in a masters meet; after all, it has been 25 years. I'm pretty much starting from scratch (and, by the way, I'm sore).

But it's a great feeling to know that I stuck with it, even though I was discouraged much of the time, and that perseverance got me what I wanted. I didn't let GAIL get the better of me, even though I had my doubts I would ever be doing this again.

So I'll ask you again: What are you fantasizing about instead of doing?

What's holding you back from public speaking?

And what are you going to do about it?

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