Got Courage? For me, courage is essential for everything from growing my business to living my life in a more authentic, joyful, loving, way.
A few months ago I taught a workshop called the Courage Experiment. My goal was to experiment with different courage boosting techniques, and share them with others. Here are 22 techniques I’ve found to be most helpful. Experiment, and discover what works for you. Enjoy!
Seek Courageous Role Models – Look around at the people in your life, in the media, in books, and in history. Who are your courageous role models? Learn about the ways in which they use their courage. Adopt strategies that appeal to you.
Collect Courage Quotes — Use the internet to find quotes about courage. Collect quotes that really speak to you. Print some out, and post them where you’ll see them.
Embrace Your Fear – Feel your fear. Practice sending compassion and understanding to yourself in your moments of fear. Sometimes just pausing with this intention is enough to release fear.
Admit to your Fears with a Friend – Sometimes it takes a lot of courage to admit we’re afraid. Fear loves to hide in secrecy. Sharing your fears with an understanding friend or counselor will usually help dispel some of the fear.
Don’t Engage the Drama– By-pass worst-case scenarios. We never know what’s going to happen, so why imagine the scariest possibilities? Fear feeds on drama, and will multiply the more we engage. Practice stepping away from the drama, and imagining better-feeling scenarios.
Avoid unnecessary hesitation – The more you hesitate, the more your mind will interfere to tell you all the reasons why you should fret, worry, and not take that courageous action step you planned to take.
Commit Yourself in Advance – Schedule your courageous acts ahead of time. Then, show up.
Do it with a friend – Practice with a friend. Celebrate together as you take courageous action steps.
Start Small – It can be hard to find courage to do something that feels big and scary. Instead, take a good look at the big and scary goal, and then break it down into smaller, friendlier steps.
Enter a state of non-resistance. – Courage can be tough to muster when we’re dreading doing something. Practice letting go of resistance, and being present with whatever happens along your way.
Tap into your BIG WHY – Why do you want to use your courage? Get clear about your true, authentic intentions. When we feel really inspired and motivated, sometimes we’ll do just about anything to get what we want.
Visualize Best Outcomes – Visualization is a very powerful technique to help us imagine our best outcomes. By visualizing what you want, you will activate your reticular activator to help you begin to see evidence of what you’re visualizing. By allowing yourself to feel the energy of your imagined scene, you can boost both your enthusiasm and your courage.
Do Things that Others Don’t. – Practice following the beat of your own drum. The more comfortable you are doing your own thing, the more courage you will have to do anything.
Turn Obstacles and Failures into Assets – It’s easy to use obstacles and failures as excuses to forgo our courage. By turning obstacles and failures into opportunities to learn and grow, we can bypass fear, and move forward with courage. This fortifies our courage to continue, despite obstacles or failures along our way.
Expand Your Knowledge – Many times we’re scared of what we don’t know or understand. By increasing your knowledge about a particular area, you will increase your confidence and courage to explore areas you might previously have avoided.
Incremental Exposure – Little by little, expose yourself to the thing that you fear.
Imagine How You’ll Feel after You Do It. Imagining how good you’ll feel once you take action will boost your enthusiasm and your courage.
Exercise – Any form of exercise will help release pent-up stress and anxiety. In addition, you will strengthen your sense of confidence as you follow through with regular exercise. Confidence nourishes courage.
Meditation – Meditation will help you feel centered, grounded, and relaxed. When you come from a place of centered calm, courage is much easier to access.
Affirmations – Affirmations, when frequently repeated, will assist your subconscious mind in helping you feel more courageous. Create a few short, easy-to-say, affirmations. For example: “I love feeling courageous.” Or “My courage brings success.” Repeat throughout your day, and/or for 2-5 minutes at a time. Remember — repetition increases the power of an affirmation.
Heart Breath – The heart breath will help you drop out of a worried, stressed mind, into the peace and wisdom of your heart. To do the heart breath, close your eyes and take a few long deep breaths. Next, continue to breathe deeply while imagining you are breathing in and out of your heart. Continue to breathe this way for 1-5 minutes.
EFT Tapping – EFT Tapping, tapping on specific acupressure points on the face, torso, and hand, helps to reduce cortisol, the major stress hormone. Calming your nervous system is an important first step in cultivating courage. Contact me at marian@marianbuckmurray.com if you’d like to learn more about EFT Tapping.
Our Beautiful World Needs YOUR Courage!
In Courage,
Marian
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