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The Courage to Master Your Fears

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear-not absence of fear."--Mark Twain

I found an interesting thing when I looked up courage in the dictionary. .. 'the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc. without fear or bravery.'

I'm not sure I buy into that one. To me, courage is doing what needs to be done in spite of fear. I think bravery, for example, in particular is a way of thinking about our lives such that we are doing what we need to do even though we have fear about doing it.

Genuinely courageous and brave people don't lack fear. They are acting in spite of the fear. I define courage and bravery as doing what needs to be done in spite of fear. If it didn't have the element of fear, why would we need the courage to do it?

Think about a time when you should have taken action but didn't and remember what it was that prevented you from acting. Why didn't you move forward? Really think about this for a moment.

I want you to think of another time when you needed to act and you did not act. Or you didn't act as fully as you should have. And I want you to remember why you didn't.

Think about these two events and consider the similarities. There's going to be at least one, and possibly more. I suspect the main common denominator is some sort of fear.

The big question is, what would have happened if you had acted despite your fear? Work through these two events in your mind and think about how it could have gone the other way. What might the outcome have been if you had pushed through the fear? And what is the absolute worst thing that could have resulted if things didn't go your way?

Go back to the first event and whatever this event was, and in this instance you chose not to act or not to act fully.

Is it possible that you might have had success had you acted? Conversely, how bad could your 'worst case scenario' have been? Would you have been dumped, fired, cursed at, told 'no'?

And my next question is: Could you have lived with that? And I'll bet you money that the answer is yes. I'll bet you money that the answer is yes, you could have lived, with the worst that would have happened had things not gone the way you hoped for.

Oscar Wilde once said, "One's real life is often the life that one does not lead." What is the real life that you're not living because of a lack of courage? Conversely, in what ways have you acted despite your fear that have changed your life for the better?

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Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of wealthy prospects using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion techniques.

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