On a day like any other day, in August 2014, I was driving to work as usual. I was working for a judge in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals at the time, which is the highest court in the state of California where I live; so I really saw it as the ultimate job. The issue was, I hated it! I had worked there for about 15 months and traffic was really bad that day. Yet as I sat there, stuck in traffic, I realized that I had been figuratively stuck in traffic for 36 years. Every day I’d go to work, come back home and be so frustrated with life. The more I thought about this cycle of stagnancy, I started getting angry. I remember thinking to myself: “I don’t understand! What’s the purpose of life? Why am I even here? I have no value. There’s no reason for me.”

When I got to work that day, I saw a Facebook post that said something along the lines of: “I’m a life coach. I took some time off. I’m getting back into it and I’m looking for five women who want to change their lives.” I didn’t know what a life coach was or what it even meant, but I knew one thing – at 51 years old, I wanted to change my life. So I (virtually) raised my hand and I went ahead and hired her.

We started working together for five months and every single week I hated her because she would give me these really tough homework assignments. But, because of the investment and wanting to make sure that I got my money’s worth, I did every single homework assignment even when I didn’t want to. This led to consistent growth but, at the end of the five months (which was the end of November 2014), I was on my own because my time with her had run out.

Although I had committed to growing on my own, by December 2014 I didn’t have nearly as much growth as I had been able to achieve in the previous five months. In that time, my life coach helped me to see who I am and see that I do have value. She helped me to tap into the brilliance that I have inside of me. And so January 1st of 2015, I thought to myself: “I love the changes that have happened and I don’t want it to stop. I’ve got so many fears. I’m going to break through a fear every day this year.” And that’s exactly what I did!

I didn’t have a plan at the time. I didn’t even have any fears written out. I was just committed to doing the same thing every day: waking up and ensuring that the very first thing that I did was ask myself ‘What scares me?’. After posing that question to myself, I would lay in bed and I would wait for the first fear to come into my head and, whatever that fear was, I would commit to breaking through it that day. Through this daily practice, those three words (“What scares me?”) literally changed my life.

Not only did I undercover the fears that were holding me back, but I developed a framework for busting through each one. I call it the ‘7 Simple Steps to Break Through Fear.’ These steps are questions that can be applied to absolutely any fear that you may be experiencing and are as follows:

1. Will it adversely affect my life one year from today?
2. Will it adversely affect my life six months from today?
3. Will it adversely affect my life one month from today?
4. Will it adversely affect my life one week from today?
5. Will it adversely affect my life one day from today?
6. Will it adversely affect my life one hour from today?
7. Will it adversely affect my life right now?

For example, one of the fears that came up for me one particular morning was talking to a stranger in a Starbucks®. The reason I think that fear came up was because, working for myself, I would routinely go to Starbucks®, open up my laptop, sit down, work, close my laptop and walk out. I would never talk to anybody; never look at anybody because of my fear of judgment. That particular day, though, I broke through that fear by going through my 7 steps. “Okay,” I said, “If I talk to a stranger in a Starbucks® right now, is it going to adversely affect my life one year from today?” The answer was, of course, no. So I just stepped it all the way down, asking myself “If I talk to a stranger in a Starbucks® right now, is it going adversely affect my life right now? Possibly,” I thought to myself, “but it’s okay because next week I’ll be okay or tomorrow, even, I’ll be okay.”

That brings me to my next point. Ideally, I wanted to answer ‘no’ to at least the first six questions. This helped to put things into perspective and ultimately conquer any fear that was affecting my growth. The step down process of asking myself the above questions in full every day has allowed me to move from a position of anxiety to one of logic and courage. My hope is that they will do the same for you, too.