Oh, I’ve got to stop with the dicky dancing. Sorry. No dicky dancing. Shall we start again? Hi, it’s Saturday night. Yay! Or nearly, Saturday afternoon. I hope you’ve all had a great day. Mine’s been pretty good, so there you go. Tonight, today, this afternoon … God, we’re in such a countdown to getting to the end of this crazy journey. And today, I want to talk about how to find fast courage. How do you find that courageous … really, really, really quickly?
Like I talked about the other day how to get charisma quickly, we’re going to do a bit of a quick thing. So next week I might talk about how to find confidence quickly, or I’ll talk about clarity quickly, who knows? Surprise, surprise. So what’s the number one fastest way to just go, “Yep. I’m courageous now”? It’s actually to be courageous for someone else. Now, this can be a little counterintuitive because I talk so much about not doing things for other people or for external validation or finding your reason through others, because you need to be able to find that stuff by yourself. But in this particular way, I think it’s a good thing.
So if you’re in a moment where you’re really scared to do something, whether it’s to step into a networking event or to take on a really big task, or to finish your book or to ask someone you think’s really cute out on a date, think of someone else. Honestly, do it for someone else. I’ll give you an example. There’s been so many instances where people need money desperately because of someone being sick or in trouble, and we can overcome any obstacle and do it when we have that motivation. It’s a known fact; we all do it. It’s crazy. So I encourage you, if you’re having that moment and you can think of someone as like, “Okay, well I need to finish this book for so-and-so. I need to do this for somebody else,” you can often find this incredible reserve of courage that you might not even have thought was there. So go for it.
Number two is think of a time when you were courageous, because whether you’re five or 50, there have been moments in your life when you’ve been really courageous and you possibly thought you couldn’t be, couldn’t do something … the first time you stepped onto stage and sang, or did the hula hoop, or went to a cha-cha lesson. There has been a moment when you’ve been courageous, so think of it, remember it. Remember it, okay?
Number three is I want you to think about the fear and acknowledge it. Be objective about it; is the fear legitimate? Is it just ridiculous? Is it just one of those chemical reactions in your brain and once you acknowledge it and think about it, you can let it go, or is it a legitimate fear? Like, “That bungee jumping looks really bloody scary and I don’t think I’m ever going to do that,” which I’m not going to do by the way, but many people do do it. For me, that’s a legitimate fear, for other people, they’re like, “Millions of people do it. It’ll be fine; go for it.” But once you acknowledge the fear and do it in that really black and white, “Is this just my body having its crazy chemical reaction and turning this into a fear, or is it something I really do genuinely need to be worried about? Should I not be walking down this dark alley at 3:00 in the morning?” Probably legitimate fear, okay?
Number four is, you know how we’ve talked before about our virtual board of directors or virtual board of advisors? Think about whether you have a coach, a mentor, or your virtual board of advisors, what would they do in this situation? Quite often, if you think, “Oh, well I reckon so-and-so would go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” that takes you out of that fearful moment and you find courage just … ping! … out it pops. It’s great; saves the day. Yay! Courage saves the day.
Number five is just take action. So if you’re feeling fearful about something and you want to be courageous, take one, teeny tiny courageous step, and it will help you get there. Just one; doesn’t need to be massive action, but take a little bit of action and it will help you find the courage. Once you take that first step, the second step goes and the third step goes; it’s just momentum. Okay? So take a little bit of action.
Number six, take a chill pill. What do I mean by that? You know what I mean. I mean, meditate, journal, breathe. When you’re in that fearful zone and you can’t find courage, there are so many chemicals going … making you feel all crazy. So taking that time to either write down your thoughts, do a quick, deep breathing exercise or to do a bit of meditation will really help center you and help you find the courage that’s already there. It is already there. You just need to drag it out kicking and screaming. Okay?
And the number seven way to find courage really quickly, and this is kind of a no-brainer, is embrace the fear and let it go. Because as I said before, so many of the fears that we have, and so many of the reasons we’re feeling a lack of courage are bonkers reasons. They’re not really there that we’re going to spend 10 hours walking through a desert in no shoes. That would be a genuine fear and we’d probably need to find a lot of courage. The majority of our fears are just crazy ones in our mind. So if we can let go, embrace it. Go, “Yep. This is a fear.” Do the acknowledgement. “Yeah, it’s a little bit legitimate. I’m just going to let it go.” As the song says, let it go, let it go. You know that’s what you want to do.
So they are my seven tips for finding courage really, really quickly anywhere. Anywhere, any time in the day or night, you can find some courage. And what I’d like you to have the courage to do right now is go to www.samanthaleith.com/365days and sign up so you can come to the party on the last night. Yay! It’s going to be fun. Have a great weekend and I will see you all tomorrow.