Liberate Your Power: Overcoming Obstacles
- Headmistress Jill Miller
- May 25
- 8 min read
This is the fourth installment of the Liberate Your Power series. You can catch Liberate Your Power: Building Confidence here, Liberate Your Power: Building Belief here, and Liberate Your Power: Finding the Courage here.
Liberate Your Power is part of the Power series of classes I offer, along with Embrace Your Power and Speak Your Power. I'm sharing the content of this class in a series of blog posts. I'm including the pages in the workbook to give you a place to follow along and do the exercises from class.
Overcoming Obstacles
Any time we try to do anything, there will be obstacles to overcome. Unfortunately, most of them are self-imposed. To liberate our power, we can't let these hurdles stand in the way of achieving our mission.
There are all kinds of barriers to success. My nominations for the top three biggest obstacles are checking out, perfectionism, and fear of failure.
Checking out
It's okay to have a pity party from time to time - but keep it short. Checking out for very long isn't an option if you aim to liberate your power.
Checking out can come from a fixed mindset: the belief that intelligence, talents, and personalities are traits that can't be changed or grown, that we're born with a certain level of ability or talents and can't improve our capabilities over time.
It can also come from having too many setbacks and being burned out. It's hard to see our way through to the end goal when feeling dejected and discouraged. When this happens, it may be time to change or rearrange strategies and goals. Or, it may mean that it's time to move on to something new. Make sure YOU choose the goals that matter to you.
There's a big difference between moving on to something new and checking out. Checking out is a kind of paralysis that keeps us from moving forward in any direction.
Strategies for checking in:
Go for soul-care. - I don't like the term "self-care." We treat it as trivial, a way to pamper ourselves rather than to develop ongoing coping skills. For this reason, I'm changing the term to soul-care.
Soul-care is a heartfelt practice focused on nurturing and refreshing every part of our human experience – whether it's physical, relational, emotional, sexual, or vocational. It encourages us to be mindful of the needs of our body, heart, and mind and to take responsibility for lovingly meeting those needs. Some examples of soul-care are spending time in nature, making social connections, and spending time resting or doing nothing at all.
Give yourself more self-compassion. We need to be gentle with ourselves when we feel the need to check out. Rather than beating yourself up for easing up on the accelerator, realize there's some burnout or exhaustion that needs some attention before you can hit the gas.
Get creative. – Even if you don't think of yourself as creative, pursuing creative action of any type will make a massive difference in how you feel. Creativity helps you be a better problem solver, creating "happy accidents" when the original vision for the project takes a sudden turn. It calms the brain the same way as meditation, reinforces self-efficacy, boosts the immune system, and makes us happier.
Options for creativity: Beyond what we think of as creative pursuits like artwork, music, and writing, there's gardening, baking/cooking, organizing a cabinet, and taking quiet time to sit and think.
Surround yourself with people who inspire and support you. - Whatever you want to achieve in your life, find people who will elevate you, not bring you down. You can do this by finding a mentor, joining a group, taking classes, or even through coaching.
This is different than your group of friends or your family. The people we surround ourselves with and the places where we spend time shape our perspectives, behaviors, and achievements.
The most important thing is to keep trying. If you aim to go anywhere, you're bound to encounter obstacles. But it's how you react to them that matters. Believing in yourself is all about digging deep and realigning your focus on what you really want in life: discovering how to believe in yourself.
"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press on! Has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race." – Calvin Coolidge
Perfectionism
Believing that everything we do has to be perfect, that we can control everything that happens, and setting unrealistic expectations for ourselves is setting ourselves up to fail.
This can come from a fear of failure and so many other things, but being a perfectionist keeps us from taking risks or even trying. It contributes to procrastination since we put off what we're not confident about taking on. It makes any sort of feedback feel like criticism, leading to "all our nothing" thinking with no room for "good enough."
Strategies for perfectionists:
Progress over perfection.- Rather than shooting for perfection, try working on "good enough." It's more important to make progress than for everything you do to be "perfect."
Focus on purpose. – When we're pursuing our purpose, what we're driven to do, it makes it easier not to worry over all the little details that tend to bog down perfectionists. We don't have time to worry about distractions, doubters, and recognition. We have a mission to accomplish.
Don't compare yourself to anyone else. - Comparing ourselves to everyone else leads to seeing only the overwhelming gaps between where we are and where we want to be. Everything you do that improves who you are will benefit you forever. Define what success means to you.
Fear of failure
Fearing failure is probably the biggest obstacle we face because it has its hooks in all the other obstacles. Fear of failure is a big part of shutting down and being a perfectionist.
This intense and illogical fear of making mistakes or experiencing setbacks leads to avoiding challenges, procrastination, and self-sabotaging behaviors, whether we consciously realize it or not.
This is another obstacle that reinforces a fixed mindset and undermines self-efficacy. The physical reactions brought on by fear are yet another reason this feels like the greatest obstacle. We experience anxiety, sweating, and nausea, and can even suffer from full-blown panic attacks when the fear of failure triggers us.
This is a challenging obstacle to overcome and takes a lot of loving care and introspective work to ease.
Strategies for overcoming fears:
Notice when you're feeling impatient with progress. – Just because things don't happen as fast as you like doesn't mean you're failing. Progress almost always moves more slowly than we'd like. We have to give time for growth, and noticing this impatience will help you remember to persevere.
Do your best to align your goals with your values and deepest dreams, and you'll find it easier to keep moving in a positive direction. You will get there.
Stop focusing on negativity and commit. - This is a big way we sabotage ourselves. When we have one foot inside the door and the rest of our bodies outside, we're never truly committed to the action. We worry more about what we'll lose rather than what we'll gain and hold ourselves back.
Rather than focusing on what can go wrong, spend the energy visualizing what will go right and go all in. Sound scary? Take one step at a time and keep swimming. Practice believing in yourself to strengthen your resolve.
Look at failure as feedback. – There are two options when we come face to face with failure: give up or start solving problems. Making mistakes and failing is how we learn. Burning our little fingers on a hot stove taught us to be more careful.
Every failure takes us closer to success if we're more thoughtful about what we learned than beating ourselves up. It helps to write a list of what you've learned and how you'll apply these lessons to your life moving forward.
Practice failing. – One of the treatments for irrational fears is exposure therapy. Gradually exposing yourself to the source of your fear can help overcome the fear response.
Just like the little experiments we can do to increase our belief in ourselves, we can try some low-risk experiments to try on what it feels like to fail. Practicing failure in a low-risk environment can be an incredibly valuable way to build resilience and adaptability and learn how to navigate challenges.
Ideas to practice failing:
Play difficult games and puzzles – Play games and puzzles that are challenging, like crossword puzzles that are really hard, Wordle, or Sudoku. If you can change the settings, set it to the most difficult level possible. The object of the game is to make it nearly impossible to solve. Give yourself permission not to finish.
For my overachievers, set a timer so you've given yourself a deadline to quit. As you continue to do this, it will get easier, and you'll get further in the game because you learn from your mistakes.
Cook something without a recipe. – Maybe it will taste good, or maybe it will be an epic fail. You won't know for sure until you're done. If you're already doing this or are feeling extremely brave, try baking something. The ratios aren't as forgiving.
Learn a new skill. – Trying a new skill is already prone to failure because you're not an expert yet. However, it's a low-risk way to practice failing and improving.
Learn a new language, play a simple tune on an instrument, or create something you've never tried before. Expect imperfections and be kind to yourself when things don't go as planned.
Try driving somewhere without a GPS.- If you get really lost, you can turn it back on.
Wear something outrageous. – Walking around in a bold or strange outfit will allow you to experience your discomfort in being judged.
What other experiments to try on failure can you think of? Taking a risk will help you realize that being embarrassed, feeling uncomfortable, and occasionally not succeeding isn't as life-threatening as we blow it up to be.
Remember that unless you're a megalomaniac, it is normal to experience some fear of failure. However, when it becomes excessive and interferes with daily life, speaking to a pro is important.
Overcoming obstacles is not about avoiding difficulty—it's about meeting it head-on with clarity, courage, and compassion. The real work of liberating your power happens when you face the internal barriers that threaten to hold you back: checking out, perfectionism, and fear of failure. These aren't signs of weakness. They're signals pointing toward areas where growth is possible.
The tools shared here—from soul-care to practicing failure—are not one-size-fits-all solutions. They're invitations to experiment, reflect, and reshape your responses to challenge. As you engage with these practices, remember that liberation is not a single moment of triumph but a series of small, intentional choices to keep showing up for yourself and your dreams.
Keep pressing on. Keep choosing progress over perfection. And most importantly, keep believing that you are capable of overcoming whatever stands in your way.
Want to earn your badge for this class? Don't forget to turn in your workbook pages by emailing me at Jill@FinishingSchoolForModernWomen.com.
Stay tuned for the next installment of Liberate Your Power—we'll wrap up the series by exploring how to Create a Growth Mindset.
Did you know I've published a book? Learn more about it here!
Because We’re Never Finished
The Finishing School for Modern Women, located in Wichita, Kansas, offers classes to help women find their authentic selves, not because we need finishing, but because we’re never finished. We bring together women of all ages to learn from experts and each other how to claim our power in business, finance, communication, and life.
To learn more about what we do:
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