Courage is an attribute of a person that has been discussed by centuries. There are lots of opinions, each of them is important. I’m sure that you have your own definition of what courage really is but I want to share my point of view, which you may or may not agree with.
I believe there are 4 components to courage, and if you can master them, you’ll be alright.
Fear
Fear is one of the major components of courage. They cannot exist without each other.
What is interesting though is that most of the people think that courage is the absence of fear, they think that people who are bold enough to take action in life are fearless, and that’s not true.
Let me tell you a secret, everybody is afraid of doing something different, everybody is afraid of doing something that they have never done before. But you know what, they do it anyway. They have a slightly distinct psychology that helps them to succeed in life.
Recently I was reading “Motivation manifesto” by Brendon Burchard where he wrote the entire chapter called “On Fear”.
One of the most fascinating lines I stumbled upon is this “Fear was given to us as a motive to avoid physical harm and death. That’s it. We are the ones who have perverted it into a tool for ego’s protection. Almost all the fear we experience today has nothing to do with physical threat. We have taken this impulse for safety and bastardized it into ego-driven desire to feel more emotionally comfortable.”
Isn’t that true?
Fear is rather poisonous thing to have in your mind. However you have to decide what are you going to do about it. Don’t let fear stop you because it you let it, it’s going to be hard.
Repetition
Courage like most of the other emotions is based on your mindset. If you believe you can do it, you will.
However it doesn’t mean you won’t have any hardships or struggles; there will be a plenty of them. But your ability to stand up and do it again and again is what will determine how serious you are.
It was Winston Churchill who said “Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.”
Basically what it means is that with enough patience, repetition and belief in your idea eventually you are going to succeed.
Freedom
Freedom is probably number one component that is responsible for courage.
By freedom I mean an ability to be yourself, to express and share yourself with the world without any limitations, not to depend on anything or anybody, being content with who you are because who you are is enough.
Sometimes courage can be represented in simple things:
- Ask a girl on a date is courage.
- Doing what always wanted to do despite of what your parents tell is courage.
- Give your mom a hug is courage.
- Calling a friend and say “I’m so grateful to have you in my life” is courage.
- Give a presentation in front of a small group of people is courage.
- Sing a song even if you don’t have a voice is courage.
- Write a blog post even if you haven’t done this before is courage.
- Believe in yourself and believe in where you’re going is courage.
- Tell the truth even if it’s hard is courage.
When you are free, you’re willing to do those things, despite of the size of it. Remember if you don’t have a courage to do little things, chances are you won’t be able to handle big ones. So start small.
Intuition
I hope you do realize that it takes some energy and strong emotional character to be courageous. However what I discovered recently is that most of the time courage is just simply doing what you feel is right. That’s it.
Apparently this is not an easy thing to know what is right. But listening to your intuition can help you out. It will direct you towards the path that is more important and valuable for your own well-being.
Besides, it may not be the right thing for other people but it surely will be right for you. Just listen to what your gut says, not your logic but gut.
In any case, courage is not something that you can possess, you cannot be born with it or earn it. All you need to do is just simply generate it, create courage each time when it is needed. Don’t hope that it will land on you, manifest it.