Simple Acts of Courage

One way to train your courage muscles is simply to decide that you’re going to lean in a courageous direction when the opportunity arises. Don’t worry about big, bold acts that require an 8+ level of courage on a 1-10 scale. Instead look for some 3s and 4s that you can do more easily. When you lean towards these easier opportunities to exercise courage, it can help those 8s, 9s, and 10s seem more accessible, like they’re 1-2 notches lower than before. Moreover, the 5s, 6s, and 7s will start to feel more accessible too. At some of our previous workshops, we gave attendees a list of about 50 different social courage exercises to attempt. They were free to choose which of the 50 to work on, and no one was expected to do them all. People were instructed to rank these challenges on a simple 1-3 scale: 1 meaning it was easy and that they could do that item right away without much difficulty, 2 meaning that it would take some courage but they could see themselves eventually doing it, and 3 meaning that it was out of reach and not possible for them. We sent people out in small groups on the Las Vegas Strip, encouraging them to start with their 1s and then see if they could work up to attempting some 2s. Each person had only 10 minutes to work on their exercises with a couple other attendees observing and supporting them. We did one round of these exercises each day of the 3-day workshop. By the time people returned from the first round on Day 1, a show o...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Values Source Type: blogs