Courage is the willingness do something despite the fear, pain and difficulty involved in doing it. Courage is something that each and every one of us will have to have at specific times in our life experience. And some people struggle with this more than others. Here are eleven powerful tips which will help you to be courageous.

1. People often erroneously think that courage is some kind of personal quality that they have to do something to get, or that they have to develop somehow. Or that it is just something that some people are born with and others are not. But the reality is, courage is a willingness. It is the willingness to face and lean into pain and fear. It is a choosing of discomfort and sometimes pain for the sake of what matters to you. To the degree that a person is committed to security, comfort, feeling good and ease, they will lack courage. For this reason, courage is a choice. It is a choice to feel fear and pain and difficulty for the sake of what is important to you. And that is a choice that no one can make for you. The difference between a courageous person and someone who lacks courage, is that the courageous person faces challenges head on, is willing to experience pain and moves forward with their fear. And the person who lacks courage spends their time avoiding pain, fear and challenge. 

2. One of the biggest misconceptions about courage is that people who are courageous don’t feel fear or pain in a situation where most people would. Because of this misconception, people who lack courage spend a lot of time looking for some way to make it so they aren’t afraid anymore. Or looking for some way to make a thing not painful, so they can do it. And this approach will never, ever work. It is a dead end. Because to do something that holds no fear and no pain, requires no courage. People who are courageous often feel incredible fear and incredible pain. But they choose to tolerate the fear and pain in order to face something or to take action. The correct approach is not to bulldoze through fear and pain. Nor is it to let your fear and pain mean you shouldn’t do something. It is to recognize, work with and caretake your own fear and pain while taking action towards what matters to you, even though that fear and pain is there.

3. Fear and pain are not bad. They do not feel good. But they are not bad. Both serve a purpose. Both are information. Very important information. When we feel pain or fear, we often interpret that as a message to stop and not do something. To stop and not do something is only one tiny sliver of what fear or pain can potentially mean. Otherwise, no one would ever leave a relationship that isn’t good for them or become physically fit or go through a pregnancy (which is painful). And no one would ever take a risk to get what they want or be authentic and honest or make a change to their life that brings them into the unknown (which is terrifying). And no one would ever achieve something (which is often both terrifying and painful). To have courage, we need to be in a much more dynamic and positive relationship with emotions and sensations that do not feel good. This implies seeing the positive value in fear and in pain. Embracing and caretaking your vulnerability rather than bulldozing it or allowing it to stop you from doing what matters. And being willing to experience them and hear the information, including the why it is there, carried within them. For this reason, it would benefit you to do the emotional experiencing process. You can learn how to do this process in my video that is quite literally titled: How To Do The Emotional Experiencing Process. 

4. Find your good enough WHY. Courage arises when you find a good enough reason to be courageous. In the situation you are in, look for the reason that is compelling enough that it makes you willing to lean into fear and pain and remember that reason. It will act like a north star, even when things become hard.   

5. When we are in a situation where facing something or doing something evokes fear or pain, we tend to imagine potential negative scenarios that could come as a result of facing that thing or doing that thing. What we don’t do, is to directly look at the potential consequences of NOT facing that thing or NOT doing that thing. It is a mistake to think that avoidance, even though it may feel more comfortable in the immediate moment, does not come with consequences. Every single thing we do and don’t do comes with contrast and with consequences. So, something that can really help with consequences is to deliberately play out the worst things that could happen if you don’t lean into the fear or the pain in the specific scenario you are in that is requiring you to be courageous. To help you more with this point, you can watch two of my videos: The first being: Why You Should Consciously Choose Consequences and the second being: The Biggest Lie the Spiritual/Self Help Industry Sells You.        

6. Become aware of and lean on your strengths. When we are experiencing fear and pain, we don’t feel very strong. As a result, we are more acutely aware of our weaknesses and our shortcomings. It is tempting to feel “underneath” the situation we are facing because of this. Confidence, which greatly helps us to be able to lean into fear and pain, can be drawn upon by being aware of what you are good at, knowing what your strengths, accomplishments, aptitudes, gifts, talents and skills are. We can lean on those strengths as powerful resources when we lean into a situation where we need courage. 

7. Remember the person you want to be. The one you can live with and the one you can feel good about. The price of not being courageous is low self-esteem. And that is a price that is not worth it. In whatever situation you find yourself in, really consider what the best version of yourself or perhaps your ideal future self would want you to do now in order to become them. When we become aware of what decision or action we would have to make and take in order to be able to live with ourselves, feel good about ourselves, live up to our potential and be the person we want to be, it is easier to be willing to lean into fear and pain and do the courageous thing. Do what you need to do to embody the person you want to look at in the mirror every day.     

8. Like anything, the more we do something, the more we master it, the more accustomed we become to it and the more familiar it becomes. Many people like to compare courage to a muscle that can be built for this reason. Courage is not something that has to be built up because any person can decide in a situation to lean into fear and pain (this is especially obvious when people find themselves in very extreme situations). That being said, you can train yourself into being a person who is good at doing so. The way you can do this, is by deliberately practice choosing to do things that are out of your comfort zone. Make choices throughout your day-to-day life that make you uncomfortable. You can start with littler things, like making yourself go up to and talk to someone. Or making yourself try a new activity. And graduate from there to things that require courage, where the stakes are bigger. You will be surprised how much of your time was spent trying to stay comfortable when you do this. You can develop the habit of courage which will turn into a virtue by being courageous again and again when faced with the choice to do so or not.   

9. Don’t be conditional about courage according to the results you get. Embrace the potential for failure. And use failure constructively when it happens. Just because you are courageous, does not mean you will get the results or outcome you want. True success is so much about how you handle things going badly. To succeed, you need to not be conditional about the courageous things you do. So many people on earth are conditional when it comes to things, this includes being courageous. They decide that the courageous things they did and even being courageous in general isn’t worth it, if they don’t get the outcome they want. If they fail rather than succeed. This is a recipe to try out being courageous, only to give it up when it doesn’t go perfectly to plan. It is a recipe for a life that isn’t truly lived. Again, it implies an unwillingness to experience pain. Only this time, the pains that come with failure. One of the fears and pains you will have to lean into when you are going for what is important to you, is failure. Failure is painful. But it is an opportunity to grow, learn something new, re-evaluate, try a new approach and change. It is a key part of expansion and improvement. 

10. Think about your life within the context of death. Courage is harder when we forget that life is temporary. It is all too easy to get sucked into our day-to-day experience and forget that we do not live forever. That our time here is limited and that to truly live, we need to make the very most of our time here. All that will happen if you live your life for comfort and safety, is that you will arrive at death safely. And most likely with a lot of regret about the risks you didn’t take. A great way to have the willingness to lean into what scares you, is to think about how you might feel on your death bed about what decisions you should make and what you should do, if you were to look back on the situation you are in right now. Doing this tends to reveal what is truly important and what really matters. And when we living according to values like that, we feel the ability to take on fear, pain and difficulty. If you aren’t courageous today, you will one day find that you have run out of tomorrows.  

11. Spend time with courageous people and with people who support you to be courageous. Courageous behavior is infectious. If you are surrounded by people who don’t take risks and who are ruled by their avoidance of fear and pain, you will adopt that way of being. Your wellbeing will suffer because of it. And you will squander your life. There is a difference between being smart by evaluating risks and being avoidant of risk in general. When you put yourself around courageous people and keep them as company, you will feel a greater willingness to make a decision for what matters, even if that means having to be courageous and take a risk. The feeling of being around them and watching their life will make you feel like you are not really living by comparison. And this will inspire you to choose discomfort for the sake of what matters more to you than feeling comfortable.

Courage is a crucial aspect of success. It broadens your experiences. It gives you the power to live a life according to what is most important to you. And courage reveals what you are capable of. By doing so, it grows your self-esteem. The people who live the most fulfilling lives, choose courage. And they choose it again and again and again.