Courage is FEAR WALKING

A little while ago I wrote a post on how to do the things that scare you…

Many of you loved that post and some even asked for a follow up post and how I gained the courage to do the things that scare me.

Here’s a quote I want to share with you from a book I just finished, Emotional Agility:

“Don’t aim to be fearless,
Instead, aim to walk directly into your fears
With your values as your guide
Courage is not an absence of fear
Courage is FEAR WALKING.”

There are so many nuggets to this quote…

1. DON’T AIM TO BE FEARLESS

Fear is normal. Let’s not aim to NOT feel fear when we’re doing something new. Expect that fear will be there. Just don’t let fear make your decision.

2. Use your values as your guide and WALK through your fear

What are your values? What things make your life special? Meaningful? What do you care about? What makes you happy? Who do you want to show up as?

3. Be courageous

Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is fear, WALKING.

It goes like this, for me…

There’s something I want to do…

Fear comes up. It wants to stop me.

But instead, I try and stop IT. I ask fear what she’s (fear) trying to tell me. I explore what’s going on. I hear her (but she doesn’t make a final call).

Then, I check my values. And I match my value up to what I want. Is what I want to be/do/have in alignment with my values? 

I then let my values guide me, like this: I imagine myself already being/doing/having that thing. From that place, I look back on this moment where I need to make a YES/NO choice and I ask: “Would my future self look back on my current self and thank her for saying YES?”

When it’s something important, the answer is YES.

Then, the goal is to walk through the fear and say YES anyways.

Remember, courage is fear walking. 

I’m not perfect at this. I shared a list of all of the things (or, a lot of them anyway) I’ve said YES to in this post that I’m SO thankful now I said yes to.

I’ll have even more to share throughout this year of things we’re saying yes to. Wahoo!!!

There are also some thing’s I’ve said NO to, that I wish I would have said yes to. Most of them have to do with me being afraid. Like…

Sucking (I was really not doing well that day) at snowboarding and giving up for the day. Walking down the mountain (sigh – would have been so much for fun to finish that run).

Going on a hike with Marco, hearing that there was a rattlesnake ahead and turning around in “fear” that it might SEE ME and want to immediately kill me (we would have probably been fine and that waterfall at the top would have been worth it).

Needing to say NO to people (fear of disappointment) so I could say YES to the most important people in my life (man, that time I really missed out)…

Let me make something clear here…

Exactly ZERO of these moments are moments I beat myself up for. But ALL of them are moments that taught me.

Moments that taught me how much more fun it is to kick a fear in the butt and DO IT ANYWAYS.

Moments that taught me how much better it is to let VALUES (connection, boundaries, and challenging myself) guide me rather than let FEAR make a choice.

If you’re going to remember one thing from this post remember this…

The next time you’re making a decision I want you to say an “empowered YES!” or an “empowered NO!”

Sometimes making the choice that empowers you is exactly the choice you need to make.

What decisions are you in the midst of making? What are you courageously doing right now that scares you? But you’re doing it anyway? I’d love to hear…! Share below!

GO. YOU! I’m rooting you on!