Courage Takes Skill.

Courage Takes Skill.
I was sitting there with my aunt to get our ears pierced, I was eleven years old and my aunt was too afraid to go alone so she gave me earrings for Christmas so we could go together.  I am not a needle person.  I didn't want pierced ears.  I was terrified but I knew I had to buck up and be brave for her.  And I did it!  I got my ears pierced!  I didn't die, I survived and it was a cherished memory.  

Then disaster struck with the whole earring thing.  What do you mean turn them every day?  What do you mean take them out and put them back in?  What do you mean change them out?  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????  

I know this sound ridiculous, and often times fear seems ridiculous to everyone around us, they don't get it, they don't have our fear.  This process, taught me how to find courage.  How to take little steps, day after day to build courage.  This taught me that yes, courage is a skill, that can be learned.

It took months.  My dad had to turn my earrings and put the rubbing alcohol on them.  After a few weeks, I was able to turn them, if I was laying down on the bed.  My dad had to take them out and put them back in.  After a few weeks, I could take the backs off.  A few more weeks, I could pull them out.  A few more months and I could put them back in and put the back on.  Now, it is second nature.

Like many of you, we have areas of our life that are held back by fear.  We can choose to learn how to have courage, or to let fear hold us back.  We can choose to take the little tiny baby steps that are just out of our comfort zone, one little step at a time to learn courage.  We get to overcome our fears, if we choose to.  Think about courage as a learned skill.  If you can learn anything, you can learn courage.

If you would like some help with learning courage, get my free guide, 6 Steps to Making Better Choices.

How to Make Better Choices

How to Make Better Choices

Life is just passing by, faster and faster, the feeling of not going anywhere but just surviving day to day.  Do our choices, the little ones we make every day, contribute to these feelings?

 

My dreams were fading into the background and daily life seemed to be like quicksand, sucking me in.  I had a roof over my head, food on the table, but my life seemed to be consumed by the chores every day and not the creation of my dreams.

 

I helped a friend on her farm, after her farm sitter had an emergency.  I took an hour to two hour every day to go take care of her farm.  Guess what, my life went on, my chores got down, I am not even sure what I missed during that time away.  That means, the choices I am making every day, could be made differently to use that hour or two differently and put that time towards my dreams.

 

But, that came back to, "How to make better choices?".  I knew I had time that I could work with, I knew my main dreams, I knew the steps I needed to take to get closer to my dream come true but was that really enough?

 

There were a few pieces that I was missing.  First thing I had to do was make the decision to make better choices.  That was more challenging than I thought.  The decision meant that I would have to do it.  No excuses, I had just proved I had the time.  The decision meant that there was only one thing holding me back from my dreams, and that was my mind.  My heart was where it needed to be, but my mind had to follow along.

 

To get my mind where it needed to be, I needed a process. Something in writing, that I could see, that I could look at, that would give me the answers to all those excuses I create.  Once I had the process (if you would like to have a copy of the process I used, click here), I had to put the process into action.

 

I have good days and I have not so good days, but now, I can measure how I am doing on making better choices.  This gives me the ability for the last step.  CELEBRATE.  Even one new choice, celebrate it.  The more celebration and joy that you can bring into your life, the more you will want to create those great feelings.