About courage
This week, the marketing team from the company I work for organized a team session to brainstorm a new marketing campaign. The keyword of the session was courage.
The company I work for is a highly specialized start-up that helps other startups to scale and smoothly transform into scale-ups. So our clientele is entrepreneurs. Those who start something from nothing but an idea, muddle through daily struggles, bear the responsibility of livelihoods of team members, make a tough decision to invest or divest.
All these entrepreneurial activities appear to me as courageous. Even rebellious sometimes. I strongly resonated with the topic, courage, and was triggered by the team discussion. Then, I thought about what makes a person courageous and what makes the person remain courageous.
What is Courage?
Courage is an emotion that drives an act that is considered dangerous, risky, but worth aiming for. It stems from very personal motivation. Nobody can force you to take a courageous act. That will only make you feel fearful, certainly not courageous. Courage comes from within.
Unlike bravery, courage is paired with fear. Fear of marching into the unknown as well as fear of losing what you already have. Despite the fear, you persevere to pursue your goal. Courage refers to that vigor of determination to step out of where you are and head out to where you want to be.
How to take courage?
Looking back what helped me to take courage, the answer is to detach from what you fear to lose.
Courage does not mean the absolute absence of fear. In spite of fear, you are determined to take action. That is courage. What matters then is how you establish a relationship with fear.
The best way to cope with fear is to feel and acknowledge it. Give it sufficient space in my mind (not the head!) helped me search for the source of fear. Often it is because I have something to lose that society and I think valuable — money, reputation, or status.
If I could detach myself from the symbols given by society, then I could care less about what the outcome of my action would be and take the courage to pursue something different that I value.
How to maintain courage?
- Daily discipline to stay with your courage
Detaching yourself from what you have valued is not easy. It is not like a rope once you cut off then it will never be connected again. Rather it is more like adhesive scotch tape. Even if you strip off from a table, it still has sticky glue left behind and can stick back to where it was.
So are social meanings. Even if you decide not to grant them any significance in your life, you are a part of it. Society will continue to use the same metrics and value system to judge what is worth pursuing and what is not.
Furthermore, courage is an ephemeral emotional state. One courageous act wouldn’t make you immune to the feeling of fear and the next action that requires courage. Hence, you need to constantly take proactive action to stay with your courage. Even a small daily act of courage will build up your courage.
2. Consolidate your internal drive with people you trust
Even though it is an internal state of mind, courage can be strengthened by people around you. For that, you need to surround yourself with the right groups of people who will help you consolidate your internal drive.
When I think about taking courage, I could find three groups of people: Those who say ‘don’t do it’, those who say ‘do it!’, and those who ask questions. Surprisingly, those who plainly cheer me up had no more significant effect on my decision than those who discourage me. Because to me, they are both projecting their judgment on me. So it does not add much to my internal drive.
The most supportive group I find in taking courage is the third group who asks me questions. They are the ones who are close to me and trust that I can handle either outcome.
Often they ask me two questions. They ask me questions of ‘why you want to do it?’ By answering their question, I could articulate my thoughts and remind myself of what I want to do and why I want to set off and go on a journey.
They also ask questions of ‘how do you get there?’ The question gives me a chance to think about concrete plans to get to where I want to be, rather than fantasizing about a wishful positive outcome. Their question provides me with an opportunity to think about what is the best way to get there, which will increase the chance of arriving at where I projected myself to be.
As I look back, courage is an emotional urge that tells you to explore something worthwhile outside your comfort zone. Courage is also the moral compass that tells me what to do when I encounter a situation where I need to make a judgment and take follow-up action.
It doesn’t just appear one day out of nowhere. My daily actions accumulate and build internal, intuitive, and instant judgment on what to pursue. And eventually, those actions will not require courage to take but with assurance, they will become a part of the routine.
