4 KEYS to Developing Your Courage

"4 KEYS to Developing Your Courage" by Dr. Janette Marie Freeman

Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the strength to be who and what you are-- despite the fear! Here are steps we can take to develop courage and let go of the fears that stop us from achieving our goals.

1. Recognize the fear. Don't make excuses and call it something else.

You cannot overcome or move through your fear if you don't recognize it as such. You can blame someone else, you can call it impossible or you can just admit that you are afraid. Once you admit that fear is operating, you can begin to change it.

2. Gain understanding from the fear. What am I basing this fear on? Choose to see a deeper truth.

We experience fear when we believe the lies that our ego is telling us. We believe what we have accepted as truth either consciously or unconsciously. What do you believe as true?

There is a story about a family that would get together for holidays and special occasions and fix a roast of beef. Each time they would make it they would prepare it the same way. They would take the roast and cut off on both ends and place it in the pan. This was a tradition that was handed down from mother to daughter to daughter, etc., until finally one day, one of the daughter's husbands asked her, "Why do you cut off both ends of the roast?" She replied that her mother had always done it that way, "Let's go ask her." And so they went and asked her mother, and she replied that it was because that's the way her mother had always done it. They decided to ask grandma. When they asked her, she replied, "Because that's the way my mother always did it. I don't do it that way any more; we only did it that way because the pan was too little to hold it."

See the untruth in the fear that you have held. What rules have you set for yourself? Do you want to keep living by them? You are the chooser.

3. Commit to Courage. Declare the deeper truth. 

Persistently reprogram yourself for success and courageous actions. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

4. Face the fear. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Honor your courage. Take action.

o Honor yourself every time you face a fear. Especially the little ones.

o Courage is built one success at a time. You are successful every time you try!

o Once you have admitted it is only fear holding you back, you can move through it. Move right through the middle like a courageous warrior.

o Parachutes weren't proven trustworthy by having people carry them around on their backs. The device showed its worth once someone jumped.