Building Courage so I can be Brave Enough to Push to the Other Side of Fear
Today I received this great article in my inbox, from Christine Kane, publisher of “LiveCreative” ezine, musician and creativity consultant. I just had to share it.
I’d been avoiding writing a post for a little while, because every time I sat down to write, all I could think about was FEAR. You’ve heard me talk about my fears a lot…too much lately, I think.
And you’ve been introduced to my pal, “Fearsome Freddie”, so that’s old news…
But courage…courage is a concept that I haven’t talked or written much about. And yet, developing courage has been so much a part of my personal growth and spiritual development.
I have been empowered to develop “the courage to change the things I can” as one of the pillars of my self-improvement inspiration.
This article made me smile. I hope it will do the same for you.
Please comment below, and let me know which one/s of the 52 ways you’re going to try.
52 Ways to Build Your Courage
by Christine Kane
“Excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.” – Aristotle
Courage is a muscle. Just as you wouldn’t go into the gym for the first time and lift a 100-pound dumbbell – you don’t have to begin building courage by running for President.
People often think that courage has to be big. Like sky-diving. Or giving a speech to a stadium.
Those things do require courage, yes. But in some ways, that’s baby courage. It’s obvious courage. I call it Bungee-Jumping Courage.
Bungee-Jumping Courage is convenient because it lets us define ourselves as “not courageous.” When you set the stakes that high, then you never have to approach it. You simply get to say, “Hmm, I must not have courage.”
I’m not letting you get off that easy.
Why?
Because there’s a deeper level of courage. It makes you strong. It makes you fall in love with yourself. It makes you fall in love with your life.
At its core, courage is about strengthening your relationship with yourself.
Here are 52 ways – little and big – to build your courage. Some of them seem completely foolish. But they’re not. They’re just uncomfortable. And that’s the whole point! Success in life is directly related to how uncomfortable you’re willing get. Now, get uncomfortable and go be courageous!
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1 – Paint your nails green. (Guys get extra credit for this one!)
2 – Begin to live your life as an “experiment.”
3 – If you’re always spontaneous, plan something in advance and stick with it. If you’re a meticulous planner, do something spontaneous.
4 – Quit your job.
5 – Start a blog.
6 – Take a drawing class.
7 – Learn a new language.
8 – Begin yoga.
9 – Do something tourist-y in your own town.
10 – Get up in the morning after having a bad day yesterday. Encourage yourself to begin again.
11 – Give money away.
12 – Look into people’s eyes when you’re in public – on the street, buying groceries, etc.
13 – Hire someone to do a regular task you can’t stand doing. (i.e., mowing the lawn.)
14 – Play music more. Watch TV less.
15 – Get rid of everything in your home that’s not an Absolute Yes.
16 – Put on a goofy smile and look at other drivers when you stop at lights.
17 – Go vegan.
18 – If you never host parties or dinners – invite friends over for dinner.
19 – Teach a workshop.
20 – Start a mastermind group.
21 – Be bad at something. Do it anyway.
22 – Make requests. Don’t complain.
23 – Join a writer’s group.
24 – Hire a life coach.
25 – In social situations, allow people to talk with you instead of running around the room “networking.”
26 – Worry less. Act more.
27 – Enter a writing contest.
28 – Start your own business.
29 – Ask someone out on a date.
30 – Make a business card for yourself.
31 – Eat at an ethnic restaurant you’ve never considered.
32 – Respond. Don’t react.
33 – Get some music from another culture. Sit down and really listen.
34 – Listen more. Talk less. Especially to your kids.
35 – Take a swing dance class.
36 – Hire a physical trainer.
37 – Start a book club.
38 – Test-drive a luxury car.
39 – End a relationship that drains you or hurts you.
40 – Pray.
41 – Quit smoking.
42 – Take different routes to work each day.
43 – Drive around and get lost on purpose.
44 – Wake up at 5am and write.
45 – Assumptions are the enemy of success. Question them often.
46 – Excuses are the enemy of action. Stop making them.
47 – Admit when you are wrong.
48 – Write a fan letter to someone who’s not famous – a teacher, a grocery store clerk – anyone who delights you or touches you.
49 – Pick one incomplete in your life. (A cluttered garage, for instance.) Tackle it for 15 minutes a day.
50 – Do an open-mic night.
51 – Pay the toll of the person behind you.
52 – Run for President.
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Performer, songwriter, and creativity consultant Christine Kane publishes her ‘LiveCreative’ weekly ezine with more than 11,000 subscribers. If you want to be the artist of your life and create authentic and lasting success, you can sign up for a FRE*E subscription to LiveCreative at http://www.christinekane.com/.
Meet Daisy Distraction. Creating Characters for Self Growth.
Why is it that when I get these HUGE bursts of creative energy I am so easily pulled away from finishing the task?
Just when I’ve got the plan laid out, the design outlined, all the pieces in place, I’m drifting off to other unimportant things.
Meet “Daisy Distraction”!
I’ve written about my friend “Fearsome Freddie” before. Freddie is my FEAR gremlin. Whenever I get paralyzed by fear, visualizing the cartoon character I created helps me realize how silly most of my fears really are. He’s become part of my tools for success.
Well, Freddie has a pal now, and her name is Daisy Distraction. Now I’m sending Daisy off to play with Freddie so she will leave me alone!
The good news is, I’m getting better and better at short circuiting my old self-sabotaging patterns and if creating and “playing” with these characters is what it takes, so be it!
Of course, I just wasted a few days of my precious time following Daisy and playing my favorite game of information gathering.
Translated in self growth language that means when I started to doubt myself (and that flurry of creative energy I had earlier in the week) I went looking for validation outside of myself.
I didn’t trust that what I was creating was good enough. So I went on a comparison binge!
And I got lost, literally for days, in the millions of resources available on the internet.
YUK!
The good news is, I met Daisy along the way. And now I can send her into that abyss instead of me. And I’m back on track to finish creating the “12 Baby Steps” self-coaching program.
Watch for that coming soon, OK? The outline and quick tips are already available as a free download on my site. So, if you don’t see the finished program in 30 days, call me on it, please!
So what are you’re favorite distraction techniques?
How many different ones do you think we can come up with? Share them with me in the comments below.
And, “Daisy” doesn’t have a face on paper yet. What do you think she should look like?
Stepping UP! Beyond Baby Steps…
It’s been 20 months since I was “released” from my job and career of 25 years, and committed to never going back to work for someone else again.
And boy, does that scare me. Still.
In fact, fear stopped me in my tracks again this month, and it took everything I have learned and know to manage that energy in a way that made it possible for me to grow through that fear rather than shrivel up, fall down and never get up again.
If you’ve read my special report, Becoming a Wise Well Woman- How to Baby Step Your Way to More Wisdom, Well-being and Wealth in Your Life, then you’ve read my admission that I am often afraid. Baby Step #7 reminds me to transform my fear into positive energy. Easier said then done, sometimes, I know!
So as I worked through my Baby Steps this month to transform my fear, this time I grew much stronger than I was before, and ready to STEP UP in a BIG WAY! And I know now that that’s how it’s supposed to be.
For a few years now, I’ve been developing my self-care practice, embracing simple rituals, and creating what has become my 12 Baby Steps. And I’ve taken lots of baby steps, forward and back, and then forward again, and some even in circles.
Now it’s time for me to STEP UP, beyond Baby Steps, onto a new level. One of my mentors, Sandy Grason, calls it “Playing BIG!”. Heather Dominick calls it “uplevelling”. Intellectually I’ve understood the concept for a while, but now, I actually see the stairway in front of me, leading to a new platform. And from that platform there is another set of steps, up and up and up.
And the steps don’t stop. They disappear into a wisp of clouds. Clearly, my potential is limitless! And so is yours.
You see, I’m “Stepping UP” and I know that I am called to take you with me when you are ready to go. At each and every step, I will turn and reach back to anyone who has been willing to do the work to get there.
Like me, when you are ready, you will know that it’s time to STEP UP!
How will you know you’re ready?
- Your favorite self-care practices are fully integrated into your daily life.
- You consciously choose how you live each day.
- You’ve developed a network of mentors, gentle guides and compassionate friends and you use them for support!
- You have gathered a box full of tools and treasures that provide inspiration and motivation, especially when you feel blocked, stuck or fearful.
- You honor your voice and speak your truth boldly, without hesitation.
- You can clearly “see” your vision – you can actually see yourself stepping up effortlessly.
- You’ve adopted a system and committed to a process to identify and take inspired actions.
- You’ve learned how to celebrate and give thanks and you are thrilled to share your success!
Simple, isn’t it?
It’s really all a part of your life’s journey. When you claim the journey as your own, amazing things will happen for you.
Certainly, mastering the baby steps is not easy. It takes time and practice and commitment to change.
And believe me, if I can do it, so can you!
What does FEAR look like to you?
I have to admit it, even though I am generally going about my life full of gratitude and joy, there are days when I’m just not feeling so sure…
And I know from experience, that all I have to do is just begin to doubt, just a little bit, and my old nemesis, fear — that absolutely paralyzing, stop you in your tracks, “FEAR GREMLIN”– creaps right in.
What does my “Fear Gremlin” look like?
He looks like one of those evil gremlin characters from the movie– that mohawk guy with the black streaks in his head! (not the cute, little green one).
What keeps him alive?
Despite tons of positive energy in my life, I still feed him a little bit every day. And boy is that a hard habit to break!
What does he say to me?
He tells me “I can’t do it”, “I’m not good enough”, “I don’t know enough”, “I always give up”, “people won’t like me”, or “they won’t trust me”, or “they’ll never be a part of what I’m doing”, and “they’ll REJECT me!”.
YUCK! And that feels awful…
But the day I saw that vision of my fear gremlin, I saw a picture that now makes me smile. Happily, I penciled that vision into existence in my journal, and named him “Fearsome Freddie”.
That black haired, evil eyed, white streaked, snarly creature, wasn’t so scary after all! What a shift! “Fearsome Freddie” is a cartoon character, and a funny one at that!
My tendency toward negative self-talk will never go away completely, but at least now, I can laugh at myself, toss “Fearsome Freddie” a ball of affirmations to play with, and move on.
What does your fear look like?
