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My eldest child plays soccer.  She's pretty good at it too.  And this year, her team moved up to Division 1 so things are exceptionally competitive.

When she was younger, the "Princess" was always ultra polite - one of those kids who all the teachers fawn over because she said, "please" and "thank you".  I suppose that's not a commonality much anymore.  But that streak of politeness doesn't work very well when you play competitive sports.  You have to be pretty tough and thick-skinned.

Now that she's older, the Princess still has a very quiet strength about her.  She is at the stage now where her feelings are fragile (she's a tweener), but she gets assertive on the field because her goal is clear as a Forward - be in front position to get the ball to and into the net.

This week, while she was targeting the goal, a kid on the other team recognized her skill and honed in on her.  The competitor started hounding her pretty hard verbally and physically...to the point that she was elbowing the Princess constantly.  At one point, she elbowed her so hard in the ribs she went down, tears in her eyes and a defeated look on her generally smiling face.  Things didn't look good.

I waited until half time and went over to check on her.  When I got there, I looked her in the eye and asked her how she was.  Although she responded quietly, "fine", I could tell her eyes were saying, "she's getting to me".  I told her I knew she was stronger than that but for the rest of the game, that girl took the fight out of my Princess.

You know I gave her 'the talk' on the drive home, right?  But in my heart I knew none of that would matter until SHE knew she was strong enough to overcome the pain and that much of it was in her own mind.

As I prayed about it later on, I had a revelation.  It was this -- how often do we allow our dreams to be sidetracked and wiped out because of FEAR?  It can creep up on you, whisper things in your ear that tell you "you're not good enough" or " you can't do this" and when you listen and let it knock you down, you lose sight of the goal -- the main reason why you're even playing the game.  Your business and your personal life suffer when you let Fear get the best of you.

Like I told the Princess, we have to never let our fear see us sweat - it may be there, but you look it in the eye and you show it just how good you are. Never lose sight of the goal. Because just like the game that night? We were destined to win and it happened anyway - in spite of what fear tried to do.  It can kick your butt and you may even need a little Tylenol afterwards, but don't let fear put you out of the game.

Get your theme song going in your head.  Mine is by Mary Mary and it's called Get Up.

Some of the words go like this,

"What are you afraid of? Don't you know what you're made of? One of God's greatest creations. Take this invitation now.
Get up, 'cause you can't stop. Get up, got a lot to do. 24 hours, almost gone.
Get up, don't sit back. Get up, if you wanna get there. Clocks don't stop and time won't wait."

Just remember, you have the power to choose - keep your head in the game, or let fear bully you into giving up. What's it going to be?

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About the Author: Tanya Smith is a creative business strategist and coach specializing in showing independent service providers how to simplify, save time & stand out with simple strategies that engage more quality leads and clients. Her company Be Promotable provides fresh actionable strategies and virtual resources to promote business owners as power players in their market. Get free tools to simplify and stand out online at: www.tanyasmithonline.com