Courage To Change

“Have I the courage to change?”

These are the chorus lyrics in the songs Courage by Pink (and Courage to Change by Sia) and they reflect something many people wonder about.

Have I the requisite courage for this thing I’m doing?

Big goals. New directions. Different pathways. Learning a new skill. Developing habits. Instilling a practice.

Because with the new, different, unknown and uncertain comes a little - or a lot - of fear.

It doesn’t always help to simply tell ourselves (or others) to

… feel the fear and do it anyway

… step out of your comfort zone

… be brave

… you’ve got this

Or any other assortment of motivational mottos.

We can access our courage and quieten our fears through many of our actions.

Doing something helps. For example, stepping out of our comfort zone may not mean jumping in with both feet first, we may dip a toe in and find it isn’t so scary after all.

Finding others helps. We may crowdsource our courage from those around us - people we know and those we may admire from afar. Someone to show us that feeling the fear is natural. Someone to keep cheering us on when we stumble. Someone to remind us to breathe when we’ve been holding it for too long.

Digging deeper helps. When we ask ourselves questions about why we want to do this thing, and why we’re feeling fearful, we discover evidence of the inner courage that sits behind the statement of “you’ve got this”. When we believe that courage exists, we can act with courage.

How might you answer yes, to that question, “have I got the courage to change?”

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