Choose Courage, Reap Resilience
I have a confession to make. Life is not always easy, even when you know you know the science behind resilience. I personally struggle from time to time with the fear of the unknown, and get lost in my head wrestling with the question, “what if?” In fact, it took me months to finally come to the decision and gumption to move forward with this blog because I was stuck in the throes of this question and how this blog would be received. What if everyone hated it? What if everyone could see I am a fraud? What if, what if, what if... Until eventually I had to hit the pause button on my destructive and debilitating thought process, and ask myself another question; what if at least one person found value in it? That single question helped me to see things from a different perspective and gave me the courage to push forward.
Courage is defined by Merriam-Webster as mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. In last week’s blog we explored the possibility that we are to blame for things not going the way that we wish they would in our lives, and now we must figure out where to go from here.
It is important to remember that we have choices. We can choose to sit and wallow in our own doubt and worry. Or we can choose to meet these fears head on and forge a new path. This will by no means be an easy venture, but the results are definitely worth the potential discomfort we may face on the way. Knowing this going in can give us an advantage because as we embark on this journey of taking control over ourselves and our actions, we can actively choose courage.
Courage, and courageous acts may look different for everyone depending on the environment they are operating in, and the obstacles they must overcome. Courage may look like a fireman rushing into a burning building to save someone’s life; it may look like someone speaking up to their partner/spouse about the unkind thing they said; it can also look like holding oneself accountable.
So how do we choose courage? First we need to meet our concerns, worries, and doubts head on. Start by writing them down to start viewing them in an objective light. This allows us to see our worries objectively but also to clear our head to allow us to better process and manage our emotions. Once you have a list of your worries, doubts, and concerns we need to ask ourselves a few questions to counter these worries, doubts, and concerns: What if this goes great? What if I am good enough for this task? What is truly the worst that could happen, and is that truly likely to occur? These questions are not trying to deny that bad things could happen, or that mistakes might happen; instead, it's allowing us to see both sides of the story as it comes to our thoughts on what the task or event is causing us to worry.
Once we’ve been able to see both sides in an objective light, we need to make a choice, a decision to believe in our abilities and capabilities to be successful. Our beliefs are incredibly powerful, and we can leverage that power for our benefit by not only choosing to believe in yourself to be able to accomplish great things, and also having a deliberate way to remind ourselves of this belief on a consistent daily basis. Think about it like a mantra, or a personal motto that you are repeating to yourself to fill your mental space with the belief that you are good enough, strong enough, the right person for the job.
Life is hard enough as it is, the least we can do for ourselves is not be our own worst enemy. Let’s forge a new path today by choosing to step up for ourselves, by choosing courage.
I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season, and taking time to reflect on this past year, and how you’ve changed and developed. As always, live life on the offense.
-Daren