Hello and welcome.
And today's word is courage.
How can courage improve the quality of life and improve your life for the better?
Have you ever been afraid to take a risk,
Fearing failure or judgment?
Well,
Courage isn't the absence of fear.
It's actually taking action despite it.
Courage is not about taking silly risks that we know will probably end in a loss of discomfort.
But imagine how different your life could be if you embraced courage in every aspect of your life.
Courage is essential for personal growth,
Success and even resilience.
It allows us to face challenges head on,
Speak our truth and pursue our dreams without being held back by fear.
And in this day and age,
Perhaps more than ever before,
More and more people are riddled with fear,
Fear of saying the wrong thing,
Fear of acting the wrong way,
Fear of not doing something,
Fear of doing something.
So let's start to bring some consciousness to this idea of courage and ask ourselves,
Am I being courageous enough?
Because to truly enjoy our life and create the life of our dreams,
It will take a little bit of courage,
Because if it were easy,
We would have that life already.
So let's look over history at some of the people who have inspired us.
We have Joan of Arc,
A teenage peasant girl.
She went to the French army.
She led the French army to victory during the Hundred Years' War,
Guided by her unwavering belief in her mission.
Her courage in the face of battle and execution made her a legendary figure.
Most people never knew she was a woman until the end.
Imagine that.
There must have been many,
Many moments of fear for her,
But she just kept moving forward.
Rosa Parks,
By refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus in 1955,
She sparked the civil rights movement in America.
Her quiet yet powerful act of courage changed the course of history.
So courage doesn't have much to do with being loud.
Courage can be very,
Very quiet,
But courage is moving through our fears for something that we really believe.
A study from the American Psychological Association found that acts of courage release dopamine,
Enhancing motivation and resilience.
And I find that very interesting because when I speak to people as to why they didn't take steps in the direction of courage,
They feel that it's actually helping them stay more motivated or stay strong,
But in fact it doesn't.
Research from the Harvard Business School shows that courageous decision-making leads to greater long-term success in leadership.
And courage is actually one of the six personality predictors of leaders of the future.
And neuroscientific studies indicate that courage and fear activate similar brain regions,
Meaning that overcoming fear can be a learned skill.
Very interesting that one.
So I'm going to share with you three ideas to bring more courage into your world today.
The first one is to identify one fear and take a small step to face it.
And when you've taken that small step and you survive it,
Which you will,
Take another small step.
Number two,
Practice positive self-talk to strengthen inner confidence.
Confidence is a very big reason why we don't move into fear areas,
Why we often don't have the courage.
We worry about what other people will say about us,
The impact on other people.
Will we shine too brightly and other people we think will shine less?
Of course we know that they won't.
And number three,
Surround yourself with supportive people who encourage bold decisions.
Talk to those people about their life journey,
Even strangers.
What courageous moments have you had in your life?
What did that feel like?
And actually give people the gift of bringing them back to a time in their life where they took courage and it might instill in them the urge to take courage again.
We're going to end today with a quotation by Mark Twain.
Courage is resistance to fear,
Mastery of fear,
Not absence of fear.
