When I was in coach’s training, we learned that a key aspect of coach’s job is to create a SAFE, COURAGEOUS space for her clients. I’ve thought many times of the brilliance (and challenge) of that aspiration. When we feel safe with someone else, we can dig deeper, speak from vulnerable places, work through hard feelings. That helps us get to the heart of what is important so we can know what we really want. And, when we connect with our courageous selves, we have the ability to take action, to stretch beyond fears, resistance, and small mindedness. That courageous place can take us somewhere we couldn’t imagine, with a sense of agency inside ourselves.
All of us have a courageous place. I want to focus on COURAGE because most of us lose touch with that place. We need to remember COURAGE is within us. It’s accessible. It’s a true inner strength.
Many of us feel fear with some frequency, while courage can feel more out of reach.
From talking to a stranger and networking to looking for a job or asking for help (!), we need to summon up courage. From just thinking about making a job change or making space to imagine what we want to do for work, fear can come up. Or getting an interview, or a job offer, or starting a new job, or saying no to an offer… and saying yes to something even better as yet unknown… we need courage to trust ourselves, to slow down and breathe and take stock, to remember we are capable, to find our voice, to begin again, to get back on the proverbial horse, to move forward and take risks.
We need to find that courageous place inside us.
We need courage to take action – the reaching out, the speaking up, the taking a stand. Courage to trust when facing the unknown. Courage to stay with it – sustained courage… to continue the conversation even when we start to feel uncomfortable, to persist with an interview or a job search after we have misspoken or experienced a sideways look or been rejected. Courage to keep taking forward steps and breathing. Courage to see possibilities as yet unknown. Courage to stay with our dreams.
We need to know that we have been courageous. That we have risked and survived. That we have the strength inside ourselves to be bigger than our fear, to be bold and different, to try again with a beginner’s mind and an open heart.
- Courage takes courage.
- Courage takes courage not to be held back by past events and disappointments.
- Courage takes courage to believe things can be different, we can be different and better, that something good or great is possible.
- Courage requires pulling from deep inside ourselves to step forward, to take a stand, to take a risk and Go. For. It.
- And to keep with it, to stay in contact with the “courageous space” inside ourselves, to persist because what we want matters.
All of us have been courageous. And I’ll bet that it felt great (maybe not in the moment) to take a bold move or to stay with your dreams despite what was coming at you.
How about touching into that courageous space inside you to remember what it feels like to hold yourself with an empowering coach energy? How about giving yourself that feeling of “I can do this, just watch me?”
Feel the courage inside you and go for it!