I used to believe that something was wrong with me because my dreams felt so big they scared me shitless.
I thought I needed to overcome the fear in order to reach my dreams like the successful peeps.
I used to think that they had something figured out that I didn’t, that they knew a secret withheld from me that made their fear disappear so they were able to make stuff happen.
So I put on my nerdy scientist glasses and observed what they do.
The bad news? There is no such thing as a secret.
The good news: I’ve got a a recipe for developing courage for you.
A recipe for developing courage
1. Acknowledge the fear. There’s no way around admitting that fear is there, and ignoring it won’t get you into the cool kids’ club. If you deny it, it’s likely going to find a way of sabotaging you in the form of procrastination or busyness.
2. Trust in your dream. You don’t need to be without self-doubt (!) to live your dreams. You can debate whether or not you’re a fraud numerous times per day and still move forward (although I wouldn’t recommend it, it’s not a lot of fun). All you need to do is find enough courage to trust that your dream is out there waiting for you, and that if you can just move towards it, it will eventually happen.
3. Listen to your fear. From time to time, listen to what fear tells you without taking it personally. Remember, fear might tell you you’re a complete slimeball for even trying, so don’t pay to much attention to its language. But do make an effort to understand why you’re scared and if there’s a limiting belief at it’s root that you need to address moving forward.
4. Show up consistently. Identify the #1 thing you need to do to reach your dream and do a little bit of it each day. Make it small enough so that fear won’t talk you out of it. Then just do it. Show up again and again. If fear wins and you miss a day, get back tomorrow. Remember, it’s consistency over intensity.
This is courage.
Courage doesn’t mean making fear and self-doubt disappear, but taking action in spite of it.
So if you have this big vision and it scares you shitless, that’s okay. Just make sure that fear doesn’t talk you out of taking action too often.