We all have flaws which hold us back, but which we also to an extent allow to hold us back for fear of stepping out into the unknown. If someone has always known one way of life -- a life limited by a certain characteristic viewed as negative -- then change becomes an almost enemy state. It represents moving into the unknown with no clear direction. If we haven't been there before, we are usually scared to go there.

It's not so much about making effort as it is about making a mental change.

We say we don't want to go out with our friends one night because we feel self-conscious of our weight; it's not our weight holding us back, it's *us*. Weight isn't who we are -- it's the mental side that needs the fixing the most.
Or we say we just can't go to this or that place because we haven't been there and wouldn't know how to behave once we get there. But isn't that the challenge, the enlightening danger of life? Existing on the threads of the known and unknown?

Someone said that I was like the person in the song "Hiding in your shell" by Supertramp. (lyrics: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/supertramp/hide+in+your+shell_20133861.html). I was really, really bothered by it.
Know why? Because I was. And somewhat still am.

And so my point is, we have to quit hiding in our shell. It is a conscious decision, up to a point, and the best thing to do for ourselves is to move OUT of the comfort zone, push past what we know and change ourselves in the process. Adapt, modify, intensify, live in a vivid way not yet lived.

Don't let yourself be held back from anything - speaking your mind, living the way you truly want, studying the major you want in school, losing those last ten pounds, attempting to record an album or write a novel - because if you do, it will be years later until you truly see that hiding in your shell is really self-alienation.

I don't know where I was going with this. Hopefully there was something insightful.