3 Ways to Find Your COURAGE*
With 5 WAYS to FACE YOUR FEAR, let’s search now for COURAGE.
Summoning courage when we must — in risky or even dangerous situations — can be tricky. Our brain’s emotional center gets overexcited and thwarts us, when what we really need is for our ‘thinking’ brain to take over and smartly direct our action. And there’s an added mental challenge if we believe ourselves to be shy, inadequate, and not so courageous by nature …
So, how to find our courage?
A few years ago, I interviewed Chris Heivly, co-founder of MapQuest and now Entrepreneur in Residence at Techstars. He answered that very question for himself this way:
Last week, another successful entrepreneur (who founded then sold a company that helps large-scale disaster recovery spending) read Chris’ interview and wrote to me of his appreciation for that same quote.
The key here is creating momentum; i.e., directing the movement of your mental and material resources, inside and out. Courage starts with this intentional motion: Shifting your mind, your body, your system, and taking at least a baby step toward bold action.
Here are three ways to get things — and yourself — moving.
The whole gist of this approach is to practice behaving as though you already have courage. Some call this “Fake it ’til you make it,” though I prefer “Model ’til you morph” (…and coined that term to convey doing ‘it’ with sincere intention and effort, for integrity).
Either way, the underlying principal at work is States Create Traits. That is, the more you enter into a particular condition — and the longer you dwell there — the more that becomes a natural characteristic of you. This is why some counselors, therapists and researchers recommend acting like you’re courageous as a way to gain real confidence.
Related findings in social psychology suggest that striking an expansive posture of power might quickly cause you to feel more powerful. If you don’t typically act out desired states this way, you might even benefit from the novelty alone. That’s because novel behavior generates new neural pathways in the brain, expanding our versatility. And all of this boosts our ability to manifest what we want — whether that’s power, confidence, courage or another prize.
The core idea here goes back more than a century in the annals of social science: William James, the noted pragmatic philosopher and functional psychologist prescribed, “If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.”
Just like adopting powerful body language might make us feel powerful and confident, so can stepping into powerful roles and activities for real. For example, to build courage for doing big stuff that pushes you out of your comfort zone, take on bigger responsibilities at work or at home.
If that is the big stuff, scale up to it by doing one scary thing a day. Eleanor Roosevelt might have said this first, but leaders at the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine also recommend it for cultivating courage.
To put it technically:
Acting deliberately through your fear, for a higher end, is courage. And confidence will naturally follow (… if it wasn’t already there beforehand, à la Chris Heivly’s sequence).
In very literal and physical ways, my own clients demonstrate this over and over again. They range from early careerists to seasoned C-level officers. Many are also enrolled in top-rated MBA programs, and many are engineers, doctors and military vets.
All work with me to accelerate or deepen their team-leader development. This typically happens on outdoor challenge courses where they push past emotional and bodily comfort, beyond a felt sense of safety, and into their gritty-sweaty-scary zones. By striving through what unnerves them, they often find not only their courage, but other valuable strengths too.
It’s easier to go all in like this when you have solid support from others. So don’t go it alone. Start with your most trustworthy friends, those who emotionally embrace you without judgment and who rationally affirm your choices.
Engage a good mentor, too: one who models courage well and invites you to stretch into new, risky waters — while also accepting and respecting your personal vulnerability. A good mentor supports you through the unpredictable process of opening into your own dormant courage.
For even more immersion, get physical with your trusted network. Neurosomatics expert Mandy Blake recommends this exercise: In a safe setting, surround yourself with an inner ring of several ‘combatants’ holding boxing pads, and an outer ring of many more cheering ‘fans’. Then literally fight for what you care about with your designated adversaries, while your fans actively en-courage you to go beyond your perceived limits.
Impractical? Maybe. But brain research strongly suggests you can still increase confidence by vigorously acting out your part alone in the center while vividly imagining the others playing their roles around you.
The business people I coach learn to lean in mentally and emotionally by leaning in bodily like this. When our format is outdoor team training, this often means shifting their center of gravity toward the strenuous physical challenge they’re contending with — even though that literally makes them more vulnerable.
It can also mean consigning their full weight to the physical foundation provided by their group. Intentionally committing their bodies this way, to connect with the larger system, helps participants dissolve personal limits that are perceived in their heads, but not actual.
Time after time, I observe teams that create appropriate support for their members — and members who robustly utilize it — accomplish whatever daunting task they take up. Many report out at the other end that trusting into their supportive network helped them summon the courage to confront their inhibiting doubts, push through them, and succeed. Many experience interpersonal breakthroughs, too, along with the physical and procedural ones.
* * *
In the course of facilitating intensive outdoor team-leader development for hundreds of professionals from around the world, I’ve seen bodies change minds, minds change behavior, and behavior change outcomes. I’ve watched genuine fear give way to courageous acts by people who minutes before believed they had no such power. And I’ve witnessed individuals truly triumph by trusting the safety net of their team.
Just for a moment, just for once, bench disbelief, feel scared and ACT ANYWAY. The results may well free you from whatever’s holding you back. And if you succeed, that success will breed confidence for next time. Then you might find that your courage flows a little more freely.
The next post in this series shows how to get wiser about RISK TAKING.
*Revision of original LinkedIn post by LJN, initially published on 3 Nov 2015
3 Ways to Find Your COURAGE*
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