Episode #377 – Courage: Face Your Fear, Take the Leap

This is episode 377 of the Brilliant Balance Podcast. And today we’re talking about courage, how to face your fears and take the leap. So as we get this episode off the ground, I want to ground you in where we are as we kind of begin this year. I am in the middle of a series of episodes, a three part series, um, that I’m calling the Momentum Map. So this is a three part series on what you’ll really need in order to move your life forward this year. And I think as we begin a new year, this is very much always on our minds collectively. It’s like we know that the beginning of the year represents an opportunity to change our direction, even modestly, and then really build momentum toward the things that we want. And there is a lot of science that says that we can harness that moment in time.

It’s not magical. You could do it at other times, but harnessing a moment in time to say, this is my inflection point. This is where I am going to change something about my life, which can be very powerful. And if that is where you find yourself as you begin this year, I wanna meet you where you are and give you some tools to help you do that. So, last week’s episode, if you haven’t listened yet, you may wanna go back and listen to that one about the first element of this momentum map, which was clarity. And today we’re gonna talk about courage. Arguably, uh, as important, if not more important than clarity, is to have courage to actually get things in gear. And before I get too far into this, I wanna remind you that on Friday, January 17th, um, 2025 at 1:00 PM Eastern Time, I’m hosting a free workshop.

It’s a vision and goal setting workshop . You can kind of take the insights that are brewing from these episodes and then get together with members of this community to actually establish your vision and some of your goals for this year. Um, why am I doing that? Because we all say that we’re going to do it on our own, and so few of us actually do. So I have a strong belief that what gets scheduled gets done, putting this on your calendar, committing the time, and then just having a container where you can show up to do this work really is a game changer. So the link to register is in the show notes. If it’s easier to just click it or you can go to our website, brilliant balance.com, and we’re at slash courage, that’s where you’ll find the registration link to the workshop.

So take a second, take care of that so that you have it on your calendar, you can clear a little space to really do the work, and then we’ll get into today’s episode and you can let some of these insights sort of wash over you and prepare you for what we’re going to be doing together as we go into that workshop on the 17th. Okay? So last week, again, we talked about clarity. Uh, I am a really big believer in the power of having clarity around what it is that you want. And, um, I talked all about that last week. So again, go grab that episode

If you haven’t listened already, but once you have the clarity, it turns out that it’s not enough. Knowing what you want, um, and knowing what’s exciting to you and what lights you up and what you’re kind of intrigued by isn’t sufficient to actually go and get it, because then you have to start moving in that direction. And I think that’s where things can fall apart for a lot of us, because we are confronted by a wall of fear when we start thinking about moving our life in a direction that is at all different than the path we’re already on. And that’s what I want us to grapple with together today is why is it, um, that courage matters so much? Uh, why do we have a hard time sourcing it? Because we do. And then what can we do about it? Right? If you wanna go into this year with more courage and you want to finally have the courage to go after some of your dreams, I wanna talk about some things that we can do to make that happen.

So why does it matter, right? It might be obvious to you, but I think the first reason that courage really matters when we are trying to move our life forward is that the absence of it, which I would just call fear, kills momentum without courage. Fear really will keep you stuck in inaction. So in that way, courage is the, a bit of the antidote to fear. And I wanna be careful here because courage really is not about eradicating fear. It’s not about, oh, how am I going to get rid of this fear so that I don’t have it? Courage is about how I am going to experience fear and do it anyway, right? It’s a pretty important reframe that I think a lot of times it’s why we get courage and confidence conflated. Um, those two terms can start to seem synonymous, and they’re not.

I think that confidence is an outgrowth of courage, right? So let’s paint the picture this way. There is something that you want to do, right? And you know you wanna do it, but when you think about doing it, your brain starts firing off this long list of fears at you. Um, fear of failure is probably the most common or maybe the most generic, but there’s fears of all kinds of things. Fear of judgment, right? What are other people gonna think? Um, fear of what the trade-offs might be as we pursue this thing. Um, you know, fear of what, who we will become or have to become and what we might lose of ourselves in that process. There’s a lot of fears that can come up. And usually what happens is we start to experience that fear and we just shut the thing down, right?

We’re like, you know what? I didn’t care that much in the first place. And instead, what courage says is courage says, okay, fear, I’m gonna look you in the eye. I’m gonna acknowledge that I have this fear and I am going to proceed anyway. And if you just think about, you know, small real world examples, maybe even from childhood, I’m thinking about taking my kids on a rollercoaster for the first time and watching them and their fear build as they were getting closer and closer to it being our turn. And honestly, mine too, right? Our own, the, the, the anticipation of what this is gonna feel like. And the unknown is all sort of starting to bubble up and it crescendos right at the moment before we actually have to do the thing. So getting into the rollercoaster car and buckling in and knowing it’s our turn, I think the fear is like the highest right before we’re gonna do that thing, but it builds right in anticipation of it almost being our turn.

So it’s really easy to dance with the idea of a rollercoaster from a distance, right? When we’re, uh, talking about going to the amusement park or arriving at the park or even approaching the ride. But as we’re actually in line and getting closer and closer and knowing it’s almost our turn, and the fear can become overwhelming to the point that, you know, some of you have had this experience or you’ve watched somebody have the experience of just kind of walking back out of the line being like, you know what? I’m not doing it. The fear became too much and I decided not to do the thing. And that can be honorable in certain circumstances, but when we really want our life to look different, and this metaphor, you know, of the rollercoaster plays out, courage is the thing that allows us to hold the fear in one hand and our desire in the other and move forward.

Okay? So without it, fear will keep us stuck in inaction. So it’s very, very important in any environment where we wanna move forward. The other thing I think courage does is it starts to expand our comfort zone. It breaks down the barriers that are at the edge of our comfort zone so we can grow our comfort zone. When we do something that’s courageous the first time we’re, we tend to be doing something that’s outside of our comfort zone, kind of by definition. But the very act of doing it starts to expand the boundaries of our comfort zone. We’re now comfortable with more things, right? Once you’ve gone on that rollercoaster the first time, and I’ve watched my own kids do this, they’re like zipping back around to get in line again. Why? Because now the fear’s lower because we’ve done it once we survived it, we’re like, that was actually kind of fun.

More of that, please. And we get in line to do it again. So this notion of the courageous act actually is expansive. It will expand the edges of your comfort zone. It now becomes something you’ve done, right? You’ve already done the thing. And so you don’t have to be as afraid of it anymore, right? Time two, three, time four. And I think the third reason it matters so much, and we know this in our bones, is that courage inspires others. I, um, for the first half of my professional life, I would say I played it pretty safe, right? I graduated from, uh, an Ivy League school. I went to work for a very reputable kind of Fortune 50 company, um, in Proctor and Gamble. I devotedly climbed the ladder doing exactly what I was told for almost 15 years. And, you know, I, people respected what I was doing professionally.

I had the MBA, I had the degree, I had the, the, you know, I was climbing a ladder, making more money, getting more prestigious jobs and bigger brands. But what really started to be noticeable to me is how people respected the courageous career move I made when I left that kind of corporate nest and struck out on my own, right? So about 15 years ago now, I started my first company and the conversations I was having with people were just different. And what really I noticed was people were inspired. They wanted to know, how did I do it? No one was really asking a ton of questions about how I got the next assignment in my corporate life, right? Because we know what that rule book looks like. But when I made the decision to build my own thing and then five years later to, to pivot and build a different thing, the inspiration that that creates in others really is a ripple effect.

And that is true for everyone who does something courageous. If you look at the people that we respect and admire, whether they’re keynote speakers that we’ve heard on stage, or they’re people who’ve written books or they’re people who have podcasts, we’re often inspired by the courage that they demonstrated to do something that we’re not sure we would have the courage to do. Right? It’s deeply inspiring. And so I think courage matters because it creates courage in others. Not only does it allow us to have a bigger life and, and break down the barriers of our comfort zone, but we are creating a ripple effect on those around us. The people in our organizations, the people in our communities, the people in our families who are watching what we’re doing and thinking if they can do it, maybe I can too. And I think that’s a very powerful motivator, right?

It’s more altruistic, but it’s a very powerful motivator to help us source courage. It’s just not easy to have, it’s just not easy to find. And I think it’s why people struggle to have it, um, and why we admire it so much, because it’s not easy to source this level of courage. And there’s a couple of reasons why the first one we’ve already talked about, which is courage, is difficult because fear is dominant there. We have so many fears of all kinds, and the possibility of things going wrong really keeps us frozen, right? We we’re, we just can’t tolerate the idea that this might not work out. And so we’re like, if I just keep doing exactly what I’m doing, even if I don’t like it very much, even if it’s not really giving me the life that I’ve dreamed of, I know I can do this ’cause I’m already doing it.

And I think that is a huge reason that we stay stuck, right? The other thing that I think we like a lot is certainty, right? We have such a strong desire for certainty. We want that guarantee of knowing what’s going to happen. And again, I think our brains look at what we’ve already done and say, well, I know if I do A, B and CI I get this result. So I guess I’m just gonna keep doing it. Because the predictability of that, the certainty of that outcome outweighs the growth that we could have by doing something that’s uncertain. So we struggle to exhibit courage because our desire for certainty outweighs our desire for change. And really until, um, the pain of staying where we are exceeds the pain of tolerating that uncertainty, we just don’t change. And so it takes a lot of strength to make a change, um, out of our own volition versus making a change because we’re forced to make the change, right?

When we’re forced to make the change, we figure out how to find the courage. ’cause we have to do it. But when we don’t have to do it, I think that’s when we need some support around us to be able to behave courageously. And I think the third reason might be, might be an offshoot of these others, but self-doubt, um, our own self-doubt, our own sense of feeling unworthy or under prepared for the change can really undermine our bravery. Um, I think, you know, the externalization of fear is one thing, but when we look inward and go, I just don’t think I have what it takes, right? I don’t trust myself. I don’t know if I’m enough. I don’t know that people like me get to do things like this that will just stop us in our tracks. And I, I bet that’s relatable as you listen.

It’s certainly relatable to me. The number of times that I have danced with that thought is infinite. Um, because it’s, it’s such a human, it’s our human nature to say, I don’t think I have this in me. And we don’t know if we have it in us until we try, right? We just don’t know. But the self-doubt and the feelings of unworthiness and the feeling of being under-prepared are so powerful that they can stop us from even getting started. Okay? So again, as we’re talking about like, why is it so important and why is it so hard to have? And that’s everything I’ve shared up until now, we have to make this decision of like, what am I gonna do to go build courage? If I wanna build this courage muscle and I wanna start moving forward more courageously, what am I going to do?

And the first most powerful idea that I have for you is to reframe fear as something else. I think there’s two things we can look at. Fear as one is an indication that we’re growing, right? When you are feeling fear, it is likely because you are about to do something or you are currently doing something that you do not know how it’s gonna turn out. That the uncertainty that’s in the mix is kind of the source of the fear, right? Think about it. Otherwise, we’re pretty comfortable. ’cause we know how it’s gonna turn out. We can eat a bowl of oatmeal and be like, this is fine. ’cause I know how it goes when I eat a bowl of oatmeal. But when we’re doing something we haven’t done before, the fear is gonna rise up because we are growing. So reframing that signal as like, this is not an indication that I’m doing it wrong, it’s actually an indication that I’m doing it right, is a super important reframe.

And the second thing that we can reframe fear as is excitement. So let’s go back to the rollercoaster. When you think about standing in line for a rollercoaster, there’s this collection of physical sensations, right? Your stomach starts to get a little wobbly, might feel a little, you know, hot. Um, you know, your hands are starting to sweat. You’re kind of a little antsy. And we label all of those things as fear, but in actuality, the feelings are very, very close to excitement. The physical sensations of being excited, that sense of anticipation, they’re, they’re right underneath the feeling of fear. And so if we can start to recharacterize the feeling of fear as excitement, right? I’m in a heightened state. I’m anticipating something that’s about to happen, my body’s kind of prepping for peak performance here. That is a very powerful reframe that allows us to feel those sensations and move forward anyway, okay? So that’s a mental exercise of kind of noticing, ah, I’m noticing these sensations. I’m calling them fear. What if I call them growth? What if I call them excitement? What does that open up for me? And that’s something I want you to really consider trying, because it really does open up forward momentum.

I think another thing we can do is start small. Sometimes where I think fear becomes paralyzing and we just can’t source the courage, if we’re, we’re trying to take too big of a step to get out of the gates. And often if we have an exercise that lowers the stakes and creates a smaller step to get us into momentum, we can take the first step and then that leads to the second and the third and the 10th, right? So when you are feeling like, oh my gosh, I’m standing at this wall of fear in front of me, I always picture an American ninja warrior that warped the wall, they would like run up and then have to get up the wall. If that wall is in front of your face, what am I gonna do to take just a smaller step instead of having to climb the whole thing?

What can I do? If you pictured building a staircase next to that warped wall, it wouldn’t be so hard to go up the staircase, right? What’s hard is we’re trying to get to the top in one jump instead of, oh, I’m gonna take this thing one step at a time. So if you are feeling paralyzed because of the lack of courage, right? The absence of courage, and we’re really just feeling the fear, starting smaller, taking one smaller step in the direction of that clear vision that you had can be a way to build some momentum. And the third thing I think you can do when you really want to build courage is to borrow courage, to borrow someone else’s courage until you feel your own. And that requires you to surround yourself with brave people who really inspire you to rise to your potential, right?

When you are like, I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never done this before, I don’t think I can, I’m just riddled with self-doubt. Getting yourself in an environment with one or more people who can give you the courage can sort of source the courage for you with, think about the word encouragement, right? They’re encouraging you, imbuing you with courage so that you can do the thing. It’s a very powerful kind of shortcut. So I think in today’s world, um, particularly as women, we tend to self isolate and think, if I, if I have not figured this out on my own, there is something wrong with me. I cannot possibly admit that I don’t know how to do it, and I would rather play small, then admit that maybe I would benefit from some encouragement and support and, you know, people around me who can paint a picture of what’s possible and help me get out of the gates.

So that third one is very, very powerful. Being able to borrow courage when you don’t feel it by surrounding yourself with really brave people, where they’re like normalizing that kind of behavior and the level of success or fulfillment that might be on the other side of it, that is the inspiration that you may need to rise to the next level of life. Okay? So that is what I wanted to share with you today about courage. Again, we’re kind of in the middle of this series talking about momentum. If you are standing here at the beginning of this year saying, I want my life to look different by the end of this year than it did at the beginning, there are vectors of my life that need some attention, right? I either know I’m playing small or I actually don’t like the direction I’m headed in.

And, something about this has to change. You’re going to need to get clarity first, and you’re going to have to find the courage to move forward. So the workshop that I’m hosting on the 17th is called Clarity and Courage for a Reason. We’re gonna talk about how to harness these two very important, um, attributes to help you build and execute the plan that you want for this year. So make sure you’re, you’re signed up for the 17th, that’s an important step from today. And then come back next week for the third part in the series, because I’m gonna talk about what is maybe the biggest momentum builder of all. Um, and it’s the third C in this three part series, and that’s gonna be next week’s episode. Okay? That’s all for today, my friends. I hope I will see you at the workshop. Till next time, go be brilliant.