Atlanta, GA: We regularly hear the anthem, “follow your dreams,” but many people find themselves getting “stuck” in their pursuit of their dreams, goals, personal life, or career.

Life coach and author VALORIE BURTON, founder of the Coaching and Positive Psychology (CaPP) Institute who is one of small number of people in the world with a graduate degree in Applied Positive Psychology, believes the key to getting unstuck, fulfilling your dreams and attaining your goals is the ability to face your fears with bravery.

In her new book BRAVE ENOUGH TO SUCCEED: 40 STRATEGIES FOR GETTING UNSTUCK, Burton provides 40 powerful tools to overcome negative thinking, poor choices, and procrastination. Also how to transform your fears into action as you get unstuck and become unstoppable.

Featured strategies include:

  • Manage Your Thoughts: “It’s not what happens that matters most. It’s what you tell yourself about what happens.” Pinpoint your fear pattern. Stop rehashing the past. Don’t let the stuff you can’t control, control you. Stop catastrophizing! Boost your brainpower.
  • Build Your Faith: “When you believe you will succeed, your actions reflect that belief. Actions follow faith.” Surrender. Go through green lights. Be God’s ambassador. 
  • Adjust Your Attitude: “You can’t always choose your circumstances, but you can choose your attitude about them.” Adjust your normal. Talk about what you want, not what you don’t. Lighten up. Be gentle with yourself. Want less, give more. Own your happiness.
  • Take Action: “If you want to get unstuck, you must move – and keep moving!” Rewrite the script. Get specific, really specific. Do it, delay it delete it. Start moving and inspiration will come. Give yourself permission to do it badly. Take a step toward your goal.
  • Maintain Your Motivation: “Sometimes you’re afraid success won’t happen. That’s the moment when you have to be brave enough to take one more step forward.” Take charge of this moment. Commit or quit. Today is a day you can win. Build some momentum. Know your motivation killers. Do your own “year in review.”

In Brave Enough to Succeed, Burton delves into obstacles to becoming unstoppable including fear patterns, motivation killers, toxic friendships, and taking responsibility for our own choices.

She offers teaching tools to assist readers to:

  1. Get honest about what you want and remove the blocks that prevent progress
  2. End self-sabotaging habits that produce anxiety
  3. Release perfectionism and make real progress toward your goals
  4. Replace self-criticism with self-compassion
  5. Develop empowering habits that bring joy, productivity and freedom

“In order to create a fulfilling life, we have to be purposeful in our decisions as they will impact us long-term. We must pursue the things that empower us to express our values and talents,” says Burton. “When we do, we will live with purpose every day in our work, relationships, health, finances, and spiritual life.”

“When we become unstoppable, God is able to use us to draw people nearer to Him because they see what He can do in our lives,” says Burton. “They see His strength made perfect in our weakness. They see amazing faith, grace, and miracles unfold in our life and they want to live the same amazing life God is calling each of us to have.”  (CBA)

8 Irrefutable Rules of Getting Unstuck:

  1. You can’t move forward when you’re still looking backward. Stop staring at the closed door. Let go of the past. Live fully right where you are.
  2. Meditating on the obstacle only makes it bigger. Keep your eye on your goal rather than your problems and the problems become smaller.
  3. Emotions are teachers. Pay attention to the messages your emotions send you.
  4. Inspiration won’t chase you down. Seek it wholeheartedly and it will always appear.
  5. You can’t control which thoughts show up, but you can control which ones you entertain. Choose your thoughts very intentionally.
  6. Your words are tools. Choose words that energize and strengthen you rather than victimize and weaken you.
  7. What is central in your life controls your life. Rather than center your life on the achievement of your hopes and dreams, center your life on the One who never changes.
  8. To be unstoppable, you must master this moment. The key to getting unstuck occurs when you rally your mental, emotional, and spiritual energy to take the next step forward.