Discernment again

I have been thinking about discernment of God's call and reflecting on the element of freedom. Perhaps, the most important part of knowing how we are to respond to various things in life is being free. Often I find myself unable to allow God to speak because I have already closed off various possibilities. And the reason I close them off is fear. Sometimes it is fear of the implications of a particular choice and sometimes it is a more basic fear--such as being afraid of failure or of not not being liked, etc. What do you think?