Your guide to a healthier perspective of life
Courage is not never being afraid. Courage is having fear and acting anyways.
We are all fearful of something – being criticized, looking dumb, losing a loved one, losing our health, losing our status/reputation, losing our job/career/income, etc. But the only way to live life is to hear your fears, but to keep pushing forward.
Don’t let your fears stop you from taking action. Use them to motivate you to make your life better.
People fear losing so much that they end up losing. Everyone wants to be rich, but they are so afraid of possibly losing money, that they don’t invest. They lose out on reaching their potential because they play it too safe. It’s like the saying goes, everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die. But if you don’t die, you can’t go to heaven. You are going to have ups and downs in life, you’re going to have failures and setbacks. But if you avoid risk altogether, you’re also avoid reaping the best rewards and guaranteeing that you won’t reach your full potential.
No risk = no reward.
Whenever you are afraid, try to take a step back before making a decision. Before you decide to act or not act, try to remove yourself from the situation. If a friend came to you with a problem asking for your advice, what would you tell them?
Do not make your decision based on the fears that you have. Make your decision based on what you feel is right. What would you be proud of either doing or saying in that moment.
Would you be embarrassed to tell your parents, siblings, friends, significant other, or children about how you acted or reacted in that moment. If you are embarrassed of it, why? Is it because you did not act with courage? Is it because you acted in a way that didn’t align with your values?
Never act or react solely out of fear.
Life is not safe.
Yes, it’s much safer today than it has ever been. We have clean water, easy access to food, shelter to keep us from being exposed to the elements, we don’t have to fight off packs of wolves or lions.
Life is safe, but why does it feel so dangerous sometimes? We can feel fear from being ostracized, from failing, from not having “enough”…
But I’m here to argue that we should not strive for maximum safety. Maximum safety would require us to never leave our house, because we might get into a car accident, we’ll be exposed to other people’s germs, what if there is a mass shooting where you’re going? There is a point of diminishing returns. We want safety, of course, but we need to live and have social interactions with others. Instead of wanting maximum safety, I’d rather optimize my courage or bravery. Because often times to be the safest, you relinquish so much control – so much of your power – to someone else. But if you are courageous and brave, that power is within you to face and overcome that which you fear.
The way I see it, there are two ways to successfully face your fears. You can gradually/incrementally introduce yourself to your fears (taking baby steps – learning more about it first, then being around it, then facing it in an unimportant situation, then facing it more regularly) OR you can dive right in and surround yourself with them. The best approach depends on how devastating the outcome could be and what your mindset is.
If there are irreversible repercussions to you failing, then you should take the gradual approach. Read about what you are going to face, talk with other people who have conquered that fear, listen to books/podcasts/YouTube videos, etc. Then just go and be around whatever you have to face. You don’t need to face it yet, but the nearer you are, the more acclimated you’ll get. Start by going once per week then increase the frequency. As you become more familiar with the event, your fear levels will likely go down.
If the stakes are low if you fail/mess up, it’s probably best to just jump right in and learn on the fly. Learning is often done best by experiencing. Then you can still read, listen, talk with others, and watch others to learn more, but now you’ll have a better understanding of what they’re going through (because you’ve already been through a similar situation). You will speed up your learning curve by doing. Just make sure you have a growth mindset going into the event. You may not be good at whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish/conquer yet, but with enough practice you can/will get better.