How to Be Bolder in Your Daily Life
We would all like to be a little bolder, but fear still creeps into our daily activities. This prevents us from acting, progressing at work, and even forces us to put things off until later. Here are some ways to boost your courage and perform boldly every day.
Courage is mental fortitude , knowledge and confidence combined into one trait. With courage, you can make tough decisions, act without wasting time, and handle uncomfortable situations comfortably. You need courage when you take on new challenges at work, confront others who are less annoying to you, and even when your job suffers because you are afraid to do something less perfect . As you become bolder, you become more capable of acting and dealing with the things that come your way.
How the process of developing courage works
However, courage is not something you were born with, and it cannot be acquired overnight. Like all desirable qualities, this is what you are working on. Joel Runyon of Impossible HQ is clearly disrupting the development process . If you want to be bolder, you need to:
- To be afraid of something.
- Do it anyway.
- Be moderately less intimidated than the first time.
- Repetition
Otherwise, there is only one alternative:
- To be afraid of something.
- Nothing to do
- Still be terrified
Of course, there is more to it than just “do it anyway”. It is important to note that courage is not only about understanding risks, but also about accepting them. Jumping blindly into something doesn’t have to be brave; it can actually be pretty silly. In fact, courage is about learning to continually turn insecurity – which is what drives most of our fears – into affordable, calculated risk.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to show courage if you have never experienced it. By gradually doing what you fear , you slowly but surely remove the insecurity of it all. If you’re afraid of heights, go somewhere high. Not too high at first, but enough to keep you scared. Try it out. Feel it. Climb a little higher next time. As you progress, you will see how small the risk really is, and show courage to take it. Likewise, astronauts prepare for space travel . They learn to do things little by little, take what they’ve learned to better prepare, and then apply it. By the time they are launched into space, only courage remains.
Enjoy the moments when you feel brave every day.
When you’re doing something bold, try to capture the feeling in your thought bubble. At the very least, try to remember it as best you can. Celebrate it, take a picture, find a keepsake – anything to remind you of how wonderful you were at the time.
It doesn’t matter what it was, the main thing is that you are brave. For example, you made a mistake at work. We are afraid to say someone because we were afraid, but it had to be done. Once you’re finally done with it, think about the moment when you said to yourself, “Nothing is happening here …” Gay Norton Edelman of Family Circle calls these moments ” moments of power “:
Try to notice the times when you feel strong and competent. Pause, take a few slow, deep breaths, and say to yourself, “This is who I am.” The more you learn when you are strong, the more fearless you will become.
Big or small, bold moments are fuel for future bold actions. This fuel transfers whenever you need it. When you’re scared, you can just remind yourself, “Hey, if I could do this, I can do this.”
Use your emotions as tools
Emotions are hard to control, but controlling them is also one of the best ways to overcome fear of any kind. Focused emotions can be used to pump yourself up or even positively influence others. For example, if you get angry enough, nothing can put out the flame of your courage.
You usually don’t have to get angry day in and day out, but that doesn’t mean you can’t shake things up and use them. Robert Biswas-Diener, author of Courage Ratio: How Science Can Make You Braver , suggests thinking about ways to defuse your anger when you need a little more courage:
… You can develop bold thinking by focusing on how your most precious values are being trampled.
You usually don’t need to look for reasons to be angry, but anger can be a more valuable tool than you think. If you can find aspects of your situation that make you feel emotional, use them. For example, let’s say you are afraid to call someone. You may think about how they are wasting your time, being inattentive, or being disrespectful. Sometimes the need for courage is greater than the need to keep your head level. Just make sure you don’t go outside too much.
Ask yourself what you would do if you weren’t afraid
Sometimes, in order to be brave, you just need to look at things from the outside. If you weren’t afraid, could you actually do what you need to do? Probably! If you weren’t afraid, do you think you would be better off as a person? Probably! When you reflect and look at your situation from a different perspective, you may find that you are truly capable of doing something sincerely , without fear.
And if you feel like you are lacking in courage at the moment, just pretend you are not afraid. Others may find you brave, and who knows, you might just convince yourself that this is all in your head too. Fake it until you do it. Plus, the longer you wait, the harder it becomes to become brave . Imagine everything you could do if you weren’t afraid and instead were brave.