Sally Ride was a graduate student at Stanford when she answered an ad in the Stanford Daily and applied for a job with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA.

Here are some of tricks I use myself and recommend wholeheartedly to my students and clients when they feel stymied. These are tools to work around the mental excuses and overcome the real obstacles that stand in the way of your writing.

Real challenges include lifestyle adjustment, culture differences, and a whole different level of acceptance when someone with a different background moves to America. You are not just learning and adjusting to one culture, but to hundreds of cultures to become a real global citizen.

Our story is our past, and our past is our story. Much of the hurt we carry around with us is a stowaway from our past -- our inability to let go of what once was in order to grasp hold of what now is.

We all have our story -- and our story is us. Our past is brought carried into our present, and it becomes our companion in the future as well. Our life becomes richer and more fulfilling when we learn that our story is simply that -- a story.

Our actions have to be in balance with the stories we tell ourselves for us to be able to feel good about ourselves. Stories are important, because the motivate us to do or not to do. They give us a justification for our behavior.