August 29, 2022
Future Self
Building Courage to a Better You
Are you always bothered or frightened by the undetermined consequences of your actions or decisions, the what ifs?
Are you aware that is one of the reasons why you have not had a better life. You are too fearful of the unknown, the possible negative outcomes that you always play in your mind.
Aren’t you tired of living the life you have right now; a life that does not seem to go anywhere? It is time for you to have courage. Break that cycle and face your fears.
How important is Courage?
Courage is defined as the ability to control fear and the willingness to deal with something difficult. It is a powerful virtue not everyone has, but you can develop it within you. It allows you to live and grow fully.
Courage is important to accomplish your goals. The path to a better you is not easy. It is full of challenges and to face those challenges you must have courage. You need to be courageous enough to decide who you want to be, to be different, and to express your uniqueness.
You do not have to be what others want you to be or who they say you should be. Neither must you be the same person you are today. Everyone evolves and becomes different from who they were. Everyone has the right and the choice to decide who they want to become.
Have the courage to make that the choice. Decide and identify with the person you want to become. Be guided by that person.
Is deciding enough to give you the life you deserve? No, it is not, but it is the first step.
You must likewise have the courage to act and stand up for the person you are becoming. You need to be courageous enough to face the challenges of changing habits, going against what others think, getting out of the safe comfortable life you have known, and being vulnerable.
You must control your fear of the unknown, the unforeseen circumstances and failures for you to have a better life. You must have the courage to change the narrative that you always tell yourself.
It even takes courage to be courageous. Are you losing hope now after realizing that everything takes courage? Do not despair as there are ways to conquer your fears.
How can you build courage?
There are multiple ways to build courage. Here are some simple steps you can do today.
1. Be aware of your vulnerabilities
The first one is to be aware of your vulnerabilities and accept them. Brene Brown said that “There is no courage without vulnerability. You cannot get courage without the capacity to deal with uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.”
Reflecting on your vulnerabilities will help you sort out where your fear is coming from or why you are fearful. Are you afraid of being rejected, being hurt, being ridiculed for the mistakes you have committed, being hurt, for what others may think, for not being good enough?
Once you realise the source and reasons for your fears it will be easier to think of ways to overcome them. Accept yourself for who you truly are. Take hold of your vulnerabilities and work towards them. Everyone has their flaws and makes mistakes but not everyone dwells on them.
You do not have to be perfect because no one is. Do not be too hard on yourself. Forgive yourself for and learn from the mistakes you have made. Know that you can not please everyone but that does not mean you are not good enough.
2. Seek the Goodness within you
See yourself from a different perspective. Focus on the positives and not the negatives. Think of the things that you are good at; the things other people like about you, but you fail to see within yourself.
You often focus on your inabilities, your weaknesses, that is human nature. It is a way of protecting yourself but doing so also prevents you from knowing what you are capable of and discovering who you could be.
Instead, why not look at your weaknesses as things to improve on, things that can make you grow into a better person. Seek ways to develop yourself so that your weaknesses will no longer be weaknesses but strengths.
Focus more on the goodness within you. Write your strengths, look at and recite them every day. Affirm to yourself the good things that others see in you. Doing this everyday will slowly but surely change the way you see yourself.
Seeing yourself in a positive light increases your self-worth or how you value yourself. If you value yourself more, you will think less of what others think of you. A strong sense of self-worth gives you the ability to overcome challenges because you know what you are capable of.
3. Recognise the small achievements
Achievements give us a sense of fulfillment, but we tend to focus only on our big accomplishments. You celebrate and commend yourself for graduating with honors, being promoted at work, buying a house, 25 years of marriage.
However, you often fail to recognise the small achievements. The tasks that you were able to do that led you to accomplishing your bigger goals.
You failed to praise or congratulate yourself each day for being able to understand your lessons, for having good working relationships, for managing and doing your daily tasks, for not forgetting to send roses to your wife to let her know you appreciate her.
Without these, you will not achieve the big goal that you have set yourself to do. It is important to recognize small achievements as they give you a sense of fulfillment and the motivation you need to go further, to do more. It gives the strength and courage to face bigger tasks and not quit.
4. Use humour
Having good humour is an effective weapon to push down negative thoughts. It lets you see the lighter side of things instead of dwelling on negative feelings. Humour can improve not only your physical being but your psychological state as well.
Humour reduces stress and if we can manage stress we can think better and thus make better decisions. If you can see the benefit of your decision, you will have the courage to pursue that decision because you know the rewards you will get from it.
Humour puts your mind in a positive state. This gives you the emotional and mental strength you need to face difficult situations. It lets you be excited about the things you can do and the possibilities you have. It gives the ability to face your fears by focusing less on the negative unknowns.
5. Change the narrative you tell yourself
Our mind plays tricks on us. Our minds come up with ideas that seem real and make you uncomfortable. It gives you the negative what ifs. What if I fail? What if he rejects me? What if everyone laughs at my ideas? What if they cannot accept me for who I am?
These what ifs continuously play in your mind preventing you from doing the things you need to do. It hinders you from becoming who you can be because you are focused on the negatives. You need to conquer your fear of the unknown.
No one is sure whether your negative what ifs will really happen or not. What if the opposite happens? What if you do not fail? What if you are not rejected? What if people accept you for who you are?
Change the narrative you tell yourself. Focus on the positive and even if you do fail it is not the end of you. You can start all over again until you succeed. Everyone fails at one point in time in their life but not everyone has the courage to stand up, look at what they did wrong, learn from it and start again.
6. Meditate everyday
One good way to control your thoughts, to let you focus on your goals and be positive is through meditation. Meditation is a good practice to build courage. It gives you clarity on the possibilities that you have and things you can do.
Meditation clears your mind of all the negative thoughts that are preventing you from meeting your future self.
Setting a time to meditate each day is another small habit you can start now to build the courage you need to face life’s struggles and challenges. See your future self through your meditation and connect with that person.
Seeing who you could be will help you grow into who you should be.
Take these small steps. Develop the habit of accepting and improving on your weaknesses, focus on your strengths, commend yourself every day for the tasks you were able to do, laugh at yourself instead of dwelling on your mistakes, think of the positive what ifs, and meditate.
These steps get easier as you do them each day, as they become habits. Habits that build your courage to face life’s challenges and let you have the extraordinary life you deserve.
Be the person you want to be now.
Post Tags :
Future Self
