Pattern Interrupt » courage

36 Small Ways to Build Big Courage

Lira — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:48:02 +0000

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt. ~William Shakespeare

You are afraid of something. I know you are. I’m afraid of something too. It doesn’t matter what you fear, it matters what you do with it. Every change in your life requires that you do something new, something you’ve never done before, something that scares you. If you wish to grow, if you wish to live, you must act. Don’t wait to start living. Act with courage and discover the freedom to live NOW.

Life shrinks and expands in proportion to one’s courage. ~Anais Nin

Pick three of your favorite courage builders from the list below and do them RIGHT NOW. Then pick the three courage builders that scared the crap out of you and set a deadline in your daily planner to complete each within one week. If you don’t have a planner, post the three new actions on your bathroom mirror WITH the due date. Then, go get yourself a daily planner, set some goals, and start achieving your dreams.

Ask for the leadership role on your next project.
Take an acting class and learn how to “act” like an idiot instead of doing it by accident.
Smile at complete strangers until one of them smiles back at you.
Compliment a complete stranger on anything (appearance, technical ability, possession, etc) you like about them. Ask them where they got it.
Get a black dragon Henna tattoo on your shoulder and show everyone.
Get a kick-ass resume and send it to 10 potential employers.
Call & speak to the hiring manger from10 potential employers. Convince him to give you an interview.
Join your local chapter of Toastmasters and learn how to give a speech.
Volunteer at a local charity and learn how to give without asking for anything back.
Volunteer to present your current team project at the next customer review.
Start a blog about your most passionate goal.
Define your Life Purpose and send it to your 5 closest friends. Ask them to help you get started.
Join a new community through Tribe.Net and make friends with someone you think is more interesting than you.
Research the internet for a new mentor. Call and ask her to help you improve you skills & abilities.
Create a 6 month plan for your upcoming career change. Get career change guidance if you don’t know how.
Go out to a dance club and actually dance.
Take a social dancing class and learn that it takes both leaders and followers to make a project into something truly amazing.
Research a potential employer’s website and write a kick-ass cover letter to go with your kick-ass resume.
Buy a new business suit (at the mall, online retailer, or support your local Goodwill charity) that matches the promotion, leadership position, or raise that you want and deserve. Wear it the very next day at work.
Buy a set of red capes and wear them out to a park with your family and friends for a superhero picnic.
Frame your goals and hang them on the wall so that your family and friends will read them and ask you about your progress.
Teach a child how to read, do math, or sell lemonade on the corner (Marketing skills are just as important as a high school diploma).
Join a gym, hire a personal trainer, and commit to loosing 10 pounds in the next two months.
Ask 3 coworkers to write you a letter of recommendation for your upcoming performance review, raise discussion, or job hunt.
Build proof that you Rock! (You can even call it your Rockstar file) Collect written documents (letters, performance reviews, printed email) from your leadership & peers that you make a difference to your job, your community, and your friends. Ask for written proof whenever you finish a project.
Write a thank you letter to someone that helped you finish an important task last week. Hand deliver it and read it to them.
Cook dinner from scratch for 10 of your closest friends. At dinner, make a toast to the most amazing thing you know about each one.
Introduce yourself to one of your neighbors even if you’ve lived on the same street for 15 years. Discover something you both have in common and talk about it.
Surprise your wife, husband, significant other, or best friend by personally delivering flowers at their work office. Don’t stay for more than 5 minutes and don’t tell anyone else. Enjoy the reward of doing a good deed without asking for praise.
Write a short story or article, send it to a writing contest or magazine editor, and convince them to publish it.
Make a list of 30 things that scare you and show it to your best friend.
Tell someone NO and mean it.
Pick one of your risky but exciting goals, plan out the next 10 actions you need to complete in order to reach it and, do 2 of those actions within the next 24 hours.
Get a completely new haircut and don’t say anything to anyone about it, ever.
Create a Vision Board and hang it on your office or bedroom wall. Spend 15 minutes a day envisioning the life you want to live and believing that your are capable of living that life. (Because you are!)
Read at least 1 quote about courage every day for the next 30 days. Here’s 10 of my favorites to get you started!

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” ~Ambrose Redmoon

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” ~Plato

“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” ~Albert Einstein

“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.” ~Edmund Burke

“The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.” ~Sven Goran Eriksson

“Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.” ~Raymond Lindquist

“If you wait to do everything until you’re sure it’s right, you’ll probably never do much of anything.” ~Win Borden

“Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” ~Christopher Robin to Winnie-the-Pooh

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.” ~William Shedd

The person who says something is impossible, should not interrupt the person who is doing it ~Chinese Proverb

Instead of giving it to fear, build the courage to face it one small step at a time. 10 steps from now, you’ll be surprised at what you have already accomplished. 20 steps from now you’ll be amazed at what you no longer fear. And in 36 steps, you might be ready to change your entire world.

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How do you inspire your own courage? What one action can you do everyday to start achieving your dreams and your goals? Share your ideas in the comment section!

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Career Change Committment

Lira — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 22:31:39 +0000

How many times have you promised yourself that you’ll ask for that raise, find a better job, or fight for the promotion you know you deserve? Companies and hiring mangers expect you to have approximately 11 different jobs over your lifetime. So if you’re 30 and haven’t changed your job at least 3 or 4 times, you may actually be reducing your opportunities for career advancement.

A new job doesn’t necessarily have to be in a new career field, or even in a new company. But most managers expect that you will continually improve your technical and leadership skills, with training, and with a variety of different job experiences. That means career change isn’t an option, it is a requirement for precedence in today’s competitive market.

Find Your Life Purpose FIRST

A significant career transition can take up to two years or more, depending upon the magnitude of the change. However, if you define your Life Purpose first, you may discover that you already have most of the transferable skills you need. And more importantly, you may also find the passion to move forward toward a truly meaningful goal. Choosing a career aligned with your Life Purpose will, automatically, put you on the fast track to success.

Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: it is not to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. – William Jennings Bryan

Career Choices

Whether you want a leadership role, a raise, or an entirely new line of work, making a change is making a choice. A choice for which you are 100% responsible. When you base your career decisions on your Life Purpose, you will have a strong foundation to stand upon when difficulties arise. When your family and friends question your efforts to take on more responsibility and gain more pay, which reason would you like to give them?

A) You choose this new job because you are willing to trade your precious, irreplaceable time for money and put off your dreams until later?

B) You choose this new job because you can work with passion & focus everyday towards meaningful & significant goals–a life of Abundance, Purpose, and Achievement.

“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” – Mark Twain

I hope you picked B. Otherwise you may need to spend some time to consider the Meaning of Your Life. If you are unsure which direction to focus your efforts or how to get there, listen to your internal Voice, examine what you like & dislike about your current job, and contact a career change coach for guidance.

Change Requires Action

For many people, the biggest problem is simply finding the courage to take that first action toward a new job, a new career, and a new life of exciting but unknown opportunities. They get overwhelmed by the number of hurdles they have to jump or the difficulties they envision ahead. The good news, and the bad news, is that no one knows the future. You can guess and you can plan, but until you take action, nothing will change except your age.

Don’t let apathy destroy your dreams. Take your first step toward achievable career change right now. No matter what career you have now or what new career you want, you can begin a career change with any one of these three things:

Update your resume or hire a professional resume writer to optimize it for your specific career market. Make sure it describes the important and relevant new achievements, skills, and training that you have TODAY.
Contact 3 friends or co-workers and ask them to be your professional references. Make sure they are willing to provide enthusiastic praise for your abilities.
Increase your career network. Join a technical or leadership association, subscribe and comment on a career specific forum or blog, or contact someone who has already achieved a similar goal and ask them to mentor you.

STOP. Don’t just read those three options. Pick one and do it NOW. I’ll wait right here until you come back.

By completing one of those actions, you’ve already created enough momentum to carry you through any career change. The law that “objects in motion will stay in motion” applies to your goals just as much as it applies to the dynamic forces of the universe.

Commitment to Your Career Path

Now that you’ve got the Law’s of Physics on your side, make sure you PLAN to keep moving in the right direction. Set weekly, monthly, and (yes) yearly career goals. Focused deadlines provide a psychological trigger toward accomplishment. They help us recognize that if we don’t take action now, we may not have a chance later.

Reward those actions. Celebrate them with family and friends. Treat your mistakes as an opportunity to grow and become better in your field. But keep going, keep planning, and keep moving along the path of purpose, the path of dreams, the path of passionate achievement.

One can never consent to creep when one feels the impulse to soar. – Helen Keller

When you are truly committed to your career change, you will feel both responsibility, meaning you will “accept authority and take initiative”, and loyalty, meaning your will have “devotion or dedication to a cause.” If you want a promotion, a raise, or an awesome job that you love doing, the only way to reach your goals and change your career is to continue taking meaningful and measurable action everyday.

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them. – George Bernard Shaw

PS. Now that you are ready to act, make sure you’ve got the right goals, an actionable & achievable plan, and the motivation to reach your goals. Contact me at writer@liravaughan.com, and I will help you take the next passionate, focused step toward career change success.

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What career change are you considering? How does it fit into your larger Life Purpose? Share your ideas in the comment section!

If you enjoyed the article, please subscribe to LiraVaughan.com and share it with your friends using the Share & Enjoy social bookmarking sites. Thank you for your support!

Find Your Courage to Lead… at the movies

Lira — Thu, 28 May 2009 23:04:38 +0000

Courage is a call to action — one that creative leaders never, ever ignore. Leadership directs change. Leadership drives growth. And Leadership generates success by overcoming the fear of failure. All because true Leaders build the courage to make decisions and accept the responsibility for their choices, alone.

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

- ADMIT ONE -

Think about the last time you went to the movies. Everybody goes to the movies to have a good time, to be entertained for a few hours, to experience the thrills, chills, loss, and love of an adventurous life. But did you go with your friends and family or did you go by yourself? Most likely, you went with someone, because you wanted to share the excitement and responsibility together.

Very few people are willing to go to a movie alone. Perhaps they are scared to be seen as unpopular. Or perhaps they are afraid that their friends will be angry because they weren’t invited. Maybe they are simply worried that they won’t be able to finish that huge bucket of popcorn all by themselves. But a leader can use courage to over-ride all these small fears. He can make a decision because a leader believes in his goals even if others do not, and still enjoy the process.

- PLEASE BE SEATED -

What if you decided to go alone, bought your ticket, and then discovered you were the only person in the entire movie theatre? Consider the symmetry of coincidences that are required for this to happen. And consider how your own choices have molded these coincidences into a special evening that the Universe reserved just for you. (This does take place. It happened to me last week when I went to see the new Star Trek movie.)

Never be afraid to tread the path alone. Know which is your path and follow it wherever it may lead you; do not feel you have to follow in someone else’s footsteps. -Eileen Caddy

There’s a special feeling that occurs when the lights dim down and it’s just you and that huge movie screen. The scary parts are scarier. The funny parts are funnier. You are free to yell at the screen and wave your hands without the fear of disturbing anyone else. (Which I highly recommend, by the way.)

For those two hours you are completely engrossed. You had the courage to stay and watch the movie alone, to pick a goal and accept responsibility for your actions. Now, no one can distract you with a hushed whisper, a discrete cough, or a quickly silenced cell phone. You can express deeper emotions and feel more distinct sensations without the concern that someone will judge you. You are rewarded by the richness of an experience that many people never have. This reward is inherent to every courageous decision, whether it ends in success or not.

- DISPOSE OF ANY TRASH ON YOUR WAY OUT -

But, after the hero beats the bad guy, saves the city, and makes out with her soul mate as the sun drops below the horizon (a la Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider), you realize you are still on your own. Now, as you walk out of the theater, feeling refreshed and excited, you have a new choice. You can feel anger, fear, or sadness that you had to go to such a great movie by yourself. You can feel apathy and pretend you never decided to go in the first place. Or, you can feel gratitude for the adventure, for making a choice and living through the repercussions of that choice.

As a leader, you must pick gratitude. Because picking anger wastes the Power you just gained and picking apathy gives that Power away to someone else. Neither of these will augment your level of courage. By feeling gratitude, you accept your Power and strengthen your courage for the next important decision.

- ROLL THE CREDITS -

In essence the movie you just saw was about your life. You have to be willing to experience your life on your own terms, through your own decisions and steer it toward the adventures you wish to take. Every time you face your fears with courage, by taking action and taking responsibility, you will acquire more leadership skills, more courage, and more Power.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness. -Henry David Thoreau

You are the true Leader of your life, so you already have this innate courage. Don’t ignore this Power and pass it on to others; like your boss, your spouse, or (eegads!) your television. Don’t give away your Power to change, your Power to grow, your Power to overcome fear. Instead develop your Power and develop your courage. The more you believe in yourself, the more you will know that belief is justified. It’s as easy as going to the movies!