On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.

In his recent release, The Art of Doing, Jesse Lipscombe shares simple and straight-forward tools that can help transform our lives. Here’s an inspiring excerpt:

Which lion in your life do you need to slay? So often our hesitation to say yes to a new challenge or opportunity is rooted in fear. We attach so much fear to the unknown and worry about the potential negative outcomes of trying something new. We give so much weight to events in our past, but we don’t give the same amount of weight of those possibilities in the future. We all have lions standing in our way. Now, if those lions were real, then our fear would serve a purpose, but in most cases they are imaginary. They are feelings that we didn’t like and we don’t want to feel again. We are so scared of our lion that we let it steal the joy from everything that comes after it.

Find your lion. Take the time to ask yourself what really frightens you. Locate it and slay it. Find the courage to roar in its face, “Not this time, big kitty. Not this time.” If not only for yourself, slay it for those who are watching you. Show them it’s possible to be brave in the face of fear. Let them know that even though the fearful feelings are very real, they do not have permission to rob you of the future you know you deserve.

Source: The Art of Doing, pp. 53-54