What Courage Really Means and How to Teach It
Welcome to This Week's Episode
Welcome to this week's You Are Destined For Greatness. I appreciate you taking your time to join me today.
Why Cowboys Inspire Us
You know, my heroes have always been cowboys, and they still are, it seems, as Willie Nelson sings in his song. You know, when I was young, I wanted to be a cowboy and do all things that cowboys do, and I've done a lot of those things.
And when I think about, you know, I think a lot of us, the fascination and the romance that we feel about cowboys is kind of, is not just because they do dangerous cool things, but because cowboys stand for something.
The Cowboy Code and Living With Values
Part of this might have began with Gene Autry who was a movie star in the 40s, 50s and 60s. He came up with his own Cowboy Code, which was a code of living. And then there's The Code of the West or the Country Code, The Stable Living. We have our own Country Code for Stable Living.
Living Each Day with Courage
One value that cowboys are known to stand for is, or one of the principles that cowboys are known for is to live each day with courage. So I want to talk to you just a little bit about courage today because the more that we, I believe that the more that we understand courage and the more that we're really aware of what it means, the more that we can act on it and use it and be courageous if that's what we want to do and I think that is what we want to do because you know it sounds so good it sounds like a really positive word when I say be courageous we all like to think we're courageous and it just sounds really positive.
Why Courage Doesn't Feel Good
But it doesn't feel good you know it's pretty it's pretty uncomfortable it's pretty hard what it is and so what courage is at its core it's being willing to feel that discomfort. It's being willing to feel humiliation. It's being able to feel rejection. It's being able to feel fear, flat-out fear of what you're doing. And those are hard feelings to handle and to go through.
The Role of Self-Confidence in Courage
The key, the thing about fear is is that it takes self-confidence to be able to exercise fear. We have to be willing to feel those emotions, to exercise our fear, to feel those feelings, and do the thing anyway. Without it, we minimize ourselves, we don't do the thing, we don't make the progress, we kind of live a diminished, less-than life, and a lot of times we regret the things that we're doing.
Three Steps to Exercising Courage
So, there's a few steps to the exercising courage that I think are really helpful. And one is just to be aware of what's happening and to recognize that courage, what you're feeling is just a feeling. Most of the time the worst thing that's going to happen is how you feel. If you're aware of that, it makes it easier to be willing to feel that feeling to do the thing.
The second thing is to focus on the result that you're getting rather than the feeling that you're in the middle of. If you focus on the result or the goal or the reason that you're there or the reason that you're thinking about doing the thing, it makes it easier to go through.
Then the next and final step is just to feel the feeling and do it anyway. Make the progress, fail, get the rejection, be humiliated, and be proud of yourself for doing it.
How Courage Builds Confidence
The more that you exercise courage the more that your self-confidence shoots up and the prouder you are of yourself. You know if you're a parent and you're talking to your kids, just remember this one thing. We all have fears around different things. Different people and our kids may have fear wrapped up in things that we don't understand why. So it's important to recognize that. They may have fear for just doing the right thing, doing what you want them to. And every time that they exercise that fear, give them a pat on the back.
Be the Example of Courage
The most important thing is to demonstrate it. Be the example of courage for doing the right thing for your kids.
And I know you will because You Are Destined For Greatness.
