21 - Courage

Today's challenge:

Address a fear that has been holding you back.

What is this?

Courage is the ability to undertake an overwhelming difficulty or pain despite the eminent and unavoidable presence of fear.

Why is it important?

Courage does not have to be grandiose. You don’t need a superhero cape to live courageously every day. Define your personal values and beliefs and live your life by them.

There are many opinions in the world and there can be tremendous pressure to abandon your values and get side-tracked from your goals. Defining what you stand for and how you want others to understand who you are, requires you to be honest about what drives you, what you believe, and, most of all, what you fear.

Fear is a secret everyone shares but no one wants to admit.

Everyone is scared of something. Even the people we view as the strongest in our lives are not devoid of fear, they have just found a way to use it as an asset rather than a hindrance.

Conventional wisdom tells us to ignore and eliminate fear. However, fear can be a good thing that motivates us and keeps us out of harm’s way. A better strategy may be to accept that fear will always be there, but we get to decide if it limits us from reaching our goals and living a fulfilled life.

How can you improve your courage?

• Exercise it often. Make courage a habit. Try new things, be unique, or tackle a fear. Big challenges produce big courage but small ones every so often maintain its strength.

• Have a willingness to accept defeat. To display courage necessitates that you are aware of the possibility of failure and can accept the consequences.

• Understand the cost of inaction. We have a tendency towards discounting the cost of our choices even when it is very obvious that they are not benefitting us. Admitting when you are stuck or unhappy is an act of courage all its own. Fear exacts a steep price if you let it run your life.

Deep Dive

"The Courage to Be", by Paul Tillich

This classic work explores courage at the deepest level: how to live meaningfully despite anxiety, failure, mortality, doubt, and uncertainty. Tillich argues that courage is the act of affirming life "in spite of" fear and the threat of meaninglessness.

Waypoint: Something to consider today...

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that

counts." - Winston Churchill