Hi, would you prefer to listen? You can find this on Soundcloud by clicking here.
You probably won’t own your business very long before finding courage to face something hard or unpleasant is what you have to do. Being courageous is a big part of becoming an entrepreneur. So when something comes up that you feel like you just can’t do, what do you do? How do you go about finding courage?
How Can You Tell When You Need More Courage?
If you are facing something you know you need to do, and you find yourself avoiding it, there’s a good chance you’re 
afraid. You might know from past experience that this situation is going to be a challenge for you.
- You’re afraid of the situation
- You’re wondering if it will change a relationship
- You know you need to take an action but you procrastinate
- You secretly want to do this, but you know it will change things and others won’t like the changes
- You feel like you are going to fail, so you don’t want to try
Entrepreneurial Mindset – Cultivating Courage
It’s our job as entrepreneurs to handle change and to build our courage when we feel uncertain or scared. Building courage is similar to building muscle – taking on a challenge now helps us with confidence and finding courage later on, when something big is facing us. To foster our courage, we can pick something a few times a year and push ourselves to do it – something we’d like to grow into or change, but something that isn’t critical to our business. It can be something in your personal life, business life, or both. Pick one thing. Set a goal to try it, and push yourself past your comfort level. Try something you think is too hard.
Trying something that’s challenging builds confidence – and it doesn't matter if we fail. It’s the trying, the pushing ourselves, that builds good mindset and helps us find courage. It really boosts our confidence when we learn to be comfortable with doubt and fear, when we see it as a normal part of life and entrepreneurship. This changes our relationship to fear. A new energy of courage helps sustain us in life and in business.
In the video you see below, I share a story about facing my own fear, a personal fear, and how I surprised myself at what I could accomplish. It immediately gave me more confidence to continue trying harder.
Finding courage to try even when we fear failure or embarrassment changes our energy and our mindset. This serves us the next time we are facing something in our business that we just don’t want to deal with. It also fosters a mindset to be at ease with trying new things. Suddenly, you’ll find yourself making changes that you’ve been thinking about for a long time but have put off because you feel uncertain about them. Confidence breeds certainty.
Adults Grow and Change, Not Just Kids
There is an adult developmental cycle that we all go through – we don’t stop growing just because we’ve reached adulthood. Our developmental cycles are more inward – we grow in our attitude, our character, our spirit. As we grow, and as we mature as adults, the more we work on finding courage, the more we expand our possibilities. Even when we try things we think might not work, it develops our courage.
You probably know other business owners who are fear based. This hampers their ability to make decisions. They are scared to fail, scared to make a mistake. Their businesses don’t last. The more we can push ourselves past our comfort zone, the more we will grow and the more our businesses will grow, as well.
It’s Normal to Feel Scared
When you’re pushing yourself to build more courage, keep reminding yourself of these things:
- It’s normal in life to take on challenges
- It’s normal to do something even if you feel uncomfortable or a little bit scared.
- It’s normal to try things and know that you’re not going to succeed the first time
- It’s normal to not be perfect when we try new things.
It isn’t our purpose in life to sit around and be comfortable. It's our purpose in life to stretch and to grow, and to help those who are our customers stretch and grow, too. No matter what it is they hire us to do, they are looking for a change or they wouldn't be hiring us to begin with.
Work on finding courage. Find something to challenge yourself with either in your personal life or in your business life. Start considering yourself to be a person of courage. We live a much more fulfilling life when we see ourselves as confident, as a person of courage rather than a fearful person.
We are not born to stay comfortable. We're born to challenge ourselves and make what we want out of life. Finding courage means walking in faith toward your desired life. It’s the model we can set for each other, our customers, and our families. Finding courage is a lifelong path, and leads us to our heart’s desire.
See more about the entrepreneurial life by following me on Instagram at https://instagram.com/beyondconfident and on my Facebook page at https://facebook.com/confidentmarketer.
Join the Conversation