Let me tell you a story…

It was a two-hour drive to Cape Reinga for the start of #WalkNZ, my 3,000km solo walking adventure along the Te Araroa trail down the length of New Zealand.

Dad drove. Mum sat up front. I took the backseat, staring out the window as a diverse landscape whizzed past the car windows.

Thoughts also whizzed through my head.

What I was doing? What did I hope to prove? Could I do this? Was I crazy?

Was I ready and good enough to take on this epic trail all by myself, with no experience and extremely limited training?

I was scared. Petrified of failing and doubting everything, especially me.

And then the what ifs started – what if I got caught by the high tide and I got stranded and couldn’t get to the campsite tonight? What if I got lost? What if I couldn’t put my tent up by myself or it blew away? What if there was no water supply at the campsite? What if I couldn’t get my camp stove to work? What if I’m totally out of my depth? What if, what if, what if…

I could feel the panic and anxiety starting to build.

It wasn’t too late to say no, to turn around, go back to my safe, normal quiet life, back to my comfort zone.

But I couldn’t succumb to those negative thoughts that told me I couldn’t do this. They had held me back from starting the trail for two years already.

So, I sat in the back of the car, my insides in turmoil.

And then the northern tip of New Zealand came into view. Starting was imminent. I broke out in a cold sweat.

My parents and I stood at the start of the trail, a cliff-top path that zigzagged down to the golden beach below where waves crashed against the sand and the sun turned the ocean to a million diamonds.

With fear holding my hand, I took my first step.

A first step on an uncertain trail; a leap of faith into the unknown.

The hardest step of all.

But soon I’d taken several steps.

I had started.

But more interesting, my mind had calmed. The worries, the doubts, the anxiety, the what ifs – they had all evaporated as I stepped over the threshold into adventure, into the present.

I was living and breathing adventure. I was living and breathing my dream.

The what ifs didn’t matter now. I was in the zone. All that mattered was the here and now, the very process of putting one foot in front of the other, and slowly inching closer to Bluff.

Starting is the hardest part

The Te Araroa Trail taught me a lesson – starting is always the hardest part.

And it’s the same with any dream.

Our imagination is one of our greatest gifts – and before we start on our dreams, all we have is our imagination to make-up what the experience might be like.

The thing is our dream is on the other side of our comfort zone, and anything on the other side of our comfort zone is seen as a threat.

Our Ego Mind doesn’t want us to go there. It would prefer us to stay safe and secure in our familiar comfort zone.

And so the Ego Mind ventures into the hidden corners of our brain to reveal our greatest fears and worries and pushes them towards daylight.

Suddenly there is a fountain of bountiful excuses as to why we can’t do something, why we’re not ready or why we’re just not good enough.

A lot of the time we listen to them and believe them. We are scared. What if everything we fear and doubt will come true?

This is a perfectly normal human response because it’s our evolutionary defence mechanism working as it was designed to to protect us.

The problem is we take all these fears, doubts, what-ifs and worst-case scenarios as real and either freak out at starting or talk ourselves out of going after our dream.

This is why starting is always the hardest part.

So, what’s the solution?

There is no real secret to taking the first step.

The good news is we don’t need to find confidence or courage or be armed to the hilt with preparation and knowledge.

But understanding what’s going on from an evolutionary perspective can help us become more aware of how we’re thinking about our goals and dreams.

It gives us the opportunity to look at them more objectively rather than getting caught up in what can feel like very real feelings of fear.

And when we look at things more objectively – when we say: “Ah, that’s why I’m thinking like that, that’s why I feel that way”, and when we ask “how likely is that really?” and “is that true?” – we can start to move through the feelings and take action to progress our goals and dreams.

But here’s the really special bit.

Once we’ve started, something happens. We become more present, more focused, and often the worries we had, that felt so real, disappear.

And often we’ll even wonder what we were even worrying about and why we wasted so much mental energy on thinking and worrying about things that only existed in our head.

That’s the thing about our thoughts. They feel real and true. But they are just made-up stories we tell ourselves about the future or the past, and use them to give life to our hopes and dreams and fears.

The only real secret to starting is knowing all this – knowing that the hard part is that moment before taking the plunge when we’re all up in our heads because our Ego is trying to protect us; knowing that once that step is taken there is a world of freedom and excitement waiting for us because the vast majority of the fears and doubts won’t materialise; knowing that everything we fear and doubt is in our heads and is about a future that doesn’t yet exist and can certainly not be predicted.

Knowing all that is the spark of momentum to lean forward and embrace the what ifs.

Because what if magic, success and happiness lived on the other side of the start line? Wouldn’t you want to find out?

Here’s a video explaining the evolutionary underpinnings of what’s going on and a simple reframe to get you feeling more positive and looking at what’s possible for you.

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PS – If any of this resonates and you’d like to dive deeper into this, get support, a cheerleader, an accountability buddy and work towards achieving your dream and feeling better about yourself, then here’s how you can work with me one-to-one.