Courage Is Like A Muscle … It Needs A Daily Workout
Everything starts with Courage … it fuels your ability to deal with uncertainty and venture into the unknown. Whether it’s changing jobs or careers, starting a new relationship, jumping into a new business opportunity or venturing into a whole new lifestyle in a different place on this earth!
Courage is what allows to take those very first steps and to keep you moving through challenge, discomfort and fear. It gets you off … Cosy on the Couch in your Comfort Zone … to standing firmly in your Courage Zone. The space where OPPORTUNITY, GROWTH and ADVENTURE awaits you.
Did you know … optimal learning and growth happens at 104% of your capability … guess where that is? Yep … just outside your Comfort Zone … in your Courage Zone!
Each time you step into your Courage Zone you boost your CONFIDENCE and CAPABILITY … getting you closer to Living Your Full Potential and the Life your heart wants you to lead.
5 Cornerstones of COURAGE …
1. Courage is like a muscle … it needs a daily workout!
It is so important to do something new and different everyday … you get to build your courage muscle. This could be as simple as …
- driving a different way home
- speaking up in a meeting
- trying a new restaurant
- signing up for jiu jitsu or dance classes
- learning a new language
- having a play with a passion project
- exploring the prospect of House Sitting your way around the world
What could you start exploring each day to give your courage muscle the work out it needs?
2. Comfortable in Your Discomfort
If you can ‘do discomfort’ … you can do anything your heart desires!
This IS the secret ingredient to living Full Potency and Your Full Potential.
Many people stop dead in their tracks when they experience discomfort … mentally, emotionally, physically. Do you?
- Do you shy away from discomfort?
- Do you judge it as bad, scary or too difficult?
In reality it is just a growth space and the discomfort is just like the growing pains you experienced when you were a kid!
Discomfort arises whenever you step into uncertainty or the unknown, to do something difficult or new. I call this stepping into your Courage Zone.
You start to feel wobbly and perhaps a little out of control, just like learning to ride a bike. Then you get self conscious and think people will judge you a certain way.
It just takes practice … the more you step into your discomfort … the more comfortable you become with those feelings. Fairly soon your CONFIDENCE and KNOWING grows and you realise … YOU’VE GOT THIS!
So get conscious, at the end of each day reflect or write down where you stepped into your discomfort. Then give yourself a huge hug or a big high five … YOU DID GOOD!
3. Stretching into the Unknown Parts of YOU
When you experience discomfort you know you are Stretching into the Unknown Parts of YOU!
Think of a yoga pose … sometimes when you stretch into a particular pose there can be tightness, discomfort and a little pain.
What do you do?
Back off or breathe into it? Filling that area with rich oxygenated blood to relax, open and expand.
It is the same with mental and emotional discomfort … practice breathing into your heart space to release any mental and emotional discomfort. Click this link to gain access to my guided practice here.
4. Exploring Your ‘Sharp Edges’
We all have what I call … ‘sharp edges’ around our Comfort Zones. This is where we feel VULNERABLE, EXPOSED and OPEN to JUDGEMENT. Not just from others, but from our Inner Critic too!
For me, my ‘sharp edges’ were around …
- not knowing
- not having mastery or expertise
- being put on the spot unprepared
- getting lost
- being different
- not being consistent
- working at my own pace
- dealing with spiders, snakes and scorpions
To name a few!
Now it’s your turn … where do you think your sharp edges are? Think about all 8 areas of your life … Mentally, Emotionally, Physically, Spiritually, Vocationally, Financially, Socially and Family.
5. Leaning into Your Triggers
Your Sharp Edges are where you get TRIGGERED. This is when a situation, person, event or memory spikes an emotional reaction within you. Most people judge triggering to wrong, uncomfortable or bad. The TRUTH is … triggering is just feedback, it may be subtle or it may be large and loud. Simply put … it is your mind asking you to pay attention. It has a message for you!
Did you know … only 10% of your thoughts and beliefs are held in your Conscious Mind!
The process of being triggered is an invitation to see and understand something that has been stored in your Subconscious Mind. The space where the other 90% of your thoughts and beliefs are stored.
This feedback process is simply … AWARENESS. Awareness leads to understanding and ownership, then and only then, can you CHOOSE to think, feel and act differently. This is when you hold the power to be the change you want to see.
When you become triggered you know you are on the edge of your Comfort Zone and the cusp of your Courage Zone. This is where all growth and opportunity lays. So celebrate don’t deviate … learn to lean into your Sharp Edges and discover a whole new world right there in your Courage Zone!
Want some help finding peace and calm after being triggered? I call this Harmonisation {clickable link to open a new page to this superpower} . You can download my C.A.L.M Clearing Audio Technique here.
6. Small Imperfect Actions
Too often you get stuck before you even start!
The expectation of getting things right or the need for perfectionism / mastery looms over you like a heavy grey cloud. The next thing you know … you’ve talked yourself out of the very thing that excites you!
Your way forward is easier than you think! Give yourself PERMISSION to take Small Imperfect Actions free of judgement.
Remember … Act before you Think … it’s a great Mantra to help stop your REACTIVE MIND talking you out of action!
Small Imperfect Actions always reminds me of SIA and her song Titanium.
- Nothing to lose
- Fire away Fire away
- I am titanium
This always pumps me up and move me into action … What gets you pumped up and taking action?
