I choose life so I choose to be courageous enough so that I can make sure I live my life on my terms and so can you.
Courage?
According to Wikipedia, courage means: The choice and willingness to confront agony, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation.
We have all been courageous at some points in our lives. Some choose to be courageous more often than others. As I indicated, it is a choice and we all make it all through our lives. Unless we give ourselves a lot of practise (choosing the harder or more courageous way), the natural response of our bodies will be homeostasis. Basically, to do as little as possible as to remain in status quo within our bodies whilst our external world is changing.
Unfortunately most people seem to be stuck in homeostasis and always want to do as little as possible (but still get the rewards..). This inaction will unfortunately not take them anywhere. The only thing that will happen within the body and the brain is that this “lazy” response becomes automatic. We basically make it a habit of doing as little as possible and that becomes our automatic response. It never stops amazing me when people tell me that nothing is happening for them but “everyone else” are lucky and get all the opportunities. Random? I for sure think NOT!
If you want life to be amazing and things to happen for you, you have to be courageous and open to opportunities! Exposing oneself does not equal to be courageous in the sense that you go out risking your life every day, absolutely not! However, if you always sit at home watching tv and never expose yourself to the real world, guess what, you won’t get very lucky! The more you expose yourself, the luckier you will become.
Unless you challenge yourself, you will not grow as a person and if you are not growing, you are literally dying (on the inside). To be courageous is all about exposure and taking one step at the time and continue to take these steps. What for some seems to be a giant risk, are for others just another calculated risk (they know the risk-reward and are happy to take it). What we all should do constantly is to stretch ourselves. If we do that continuously, we will make sure to grow, expose ourselves and to be courageous.
It doesn’t have to mean risking your physical health or wellbeing but you have to do something that stretches you. You decide what it is, big or small, it will make a difference in your life and the more practise you get, the more courage you will gain!
Let me give you a real life example. One of my friends has this great looking girlfriend since a very long time and most people who meet him seem surprised (and jealous). Well, the thing was that he had the courage to talk to any girl at any time and I knew that whilst most didn’t. So when others were amazed by his courage (as in approaching and talking to the most gorgeous woman), I knew his “trick” as I had seen it many times before. This was not about luck, it was about determination and courage and he got the reward and is now married to this beautiful woman.
You see, he had been practising like no other man I know. He had the confidence to approach anyone and he would not let any rejection let him down. He would just continue. So whilst some just saw one side of the coin, the beautiful woman he always had by his side, I knew the full story. He would basically continue until he found someone who enjoyed his company, even if that meant him approaching 20 women in one evening!
Was he lucky? Or is that to be courageous?
It is really in the eye of the observer. If you ask him, he would say no. He had done it so many times so it had just become a habit to him. This goes for everything in our lives. The more we practise, the luckier we get and the less courage we will need to do these “courageous” things. Is there a better feeling than getting the courage to do something we thought we couldn’t (or wouldn’t)?
To get to the others side of fear, we need courage and we have to remember that on the other side of fear are those amazing feelings of accomplishment, pride, joy, happiness and increased confidence. If the risk of facing our fears aren’t harmful, we should always try to be courageous, that is how we continue growing as human beings!
My choice of beeing courageous
I am not going to lie and say that I always face my fears but it is for sure something I am aware of and constantly working on. I want to expose myself to variation and randomness because that is how we get to experience new things. Every time the thought of “I don’t want to do that” pops up, I ask myself WHY. If the answer is related to fear or comfort I try to challenge myself. One of the most common situations in which this occurs is when my mind says “that would be embarrassing”. I hate that! These are limiting thoughts and believes and if we don’t push ourself to do some “awkward” things, it will just get worse and worse.
Luckily I don’t feel that I have too many fears and by constantly working on them, they are becoming fewer and fewer but yes, some are still there. For most of us, myself included, I think it will take constant work but also constant progress and that is what I am focusing on! I often get the feeling afterwards of “was that it?”. When than happens, it makes me wonder why I hadn’t done it sooner! It happened when I: parachuted for the first time, did skydiving, abseiled down a waterfall, walked on fire, shaked my ass outside of Big Ben in London (link here) and decided to resign from my office job.
I am constantly trying to face my fears, and especially the ones I know are not physically harmful. It is hard but the more work I put in, the stronger my will power and brain will become. So when my mind says “I don’t want to do that”, I don’t listen. I make the calls, not the little voice in my head! I am not going to let that mind chatter rule my life. I am the boss, I am in control and I make the decisions of how I life my life. To me, facing my fears and being courageous is the definition of living!
My last question to you is: are you going to choose to face your fears, be courageous and go after the life you really want or will you go through life, never really having lived?
The choice is all yours and I suggest you give it everything you’ve got and start living your life the way you truly want!
How to make it happen
- Make sure you know what happens if you do it, what is on the other side of that feeling of fear
- Make even more sure you know everything you will be missing out on (maybe for the rest of your life) by not facing your fears
- Decide WHY you must face one of your fears (very clear and vivid picture in your mind)
- Challenge a friend or bring a friend to do it with you
- It is a decision YOU make and NOT your monkey mind, show who is boss!!
Actions to take:
- Face one of your fears today!
- Challenge a friend – accountability is a great way to get things done!
- Learn from a role model – Brainwash yourself
- Create A Winning Mindset – Check out my post on this topic
- Know WHY you must do it – Check out my post on Burning Desire
- If you have not yet set your Visions and Goals – start by clicking here
– Jakob
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