Where Does Courage Begin?
The first step of Courage is being able to listen to yourself in a noisy world
We tell ourselves a dangerous myth about where Courage originates.
The myth is that Courage floats around in the world, ready to be stumbled upon or grabbed. So elusive has Courage become in our minds that we can only imagine it occurs by chance or surprise discovery.
We think Courage begins when we find it.
The truth is that Courage starts with a simple action: listening to yourself.
Since Courage is the practice of moving toward yourself, you need to be able to know yourself. And to know yourself, you need to be able to hear yourself. All Courage begins with your ability to hear your own voice inside.
I yearn for us to open the floodgates from where Courage flows—to tap into our internal reservoir, tuning into what we want, believe, and value.
When the dam widens, we have the opportunity to bring endless Courage into our lives. When it’s closed, there’s no chance for Courage.
The steep hill to climb
The good news is that listening to ourselves is fully achievable and within our control. The bad news is that our modern life really doesn’t make it easy.
Round-the-Clock Influences
Try locating your own voice amid the thousands of voices you hear a day, compounded by the thousands of voices you’ve heard every day for the whole of your life.
Every moment, we’re pummeled with advertisements, messages from our peers, parents, family, friends, communities, and companies about what it means to have a life of value and success. We come into a world loaded with voices—individuals, groups, and systems—that influence who we should be and what we should do.
At best, these voices amplify our own voice, helping us develop and sharpen who we are.
At worst, these voices crush our own voice, suffocating our ability to connect with our unique wants and needs.
Because these voices carry the potential to either help or harm us, they're delicate to navigate. Are these voices pointing me toward where I want to be, or where someone else wants me to be?
Sadly, we can move through our whole lives based on other people’s dreams for us. We can be on auto-pilot, doing exactly what others expect of us, without tapping into our own desires.
Obsession with Productivity
Beyond having to sift through the plethora of voices, we have another challenge: we’re so damn busy all the time. We make ourselves busy.
Our obsession with productivity spills into our daily lives as we aim to optimize every inch of it. We pack our days to the brim, constantly doing doing doing. For many of us, there’s just no time and space to listen to ourselves. We don’t create it for ourselves.
Worship of Logic
Finally, we’ve been educated to worship logic over our own wisdom and intuition. We often see ourselves—the voice inside us—as undependable and indefensible. In our culture, ideas worth listening to are based in rationality, data, and facts.
We undervalue our internal knowledge—the truth we’re fed by own thoughts, bodies, and emotions.
Because we undervalue it, we don’t teach it. And so most of us have never really learned the skill of listening to ourselves. Or we must re-learn it.
A life-long practice of self listening
But there is hope! Listening to ourselves is a life-long practice, and is core to the life-long practice of Courage.
This practice requires:
Quieting other voices to make room for your voice
Challenging productivity to create time and space for yourself
Supplementing your logic by tapping into other ways of getting information
Below are tactical ways you can crack open the floodgates of self listening. These practices are not necessarily new or revolutionary. But viewed through the lens of creating more Courage in your life, I wonder whether that expands your sense of what they could do for you.
Consider how exploring one or two of these could help you take Courage off its pedestal and put it in your hands.
Meditate: I know, you’ve heard it a million times. Meditate! I’m not a super meditator myself, but I’m glad it’s in my toolbox. I found the free Healthy Minds app to be very well done and helpful in getting me started. Meditating is a powerful way to practice presence, to value your own awareness, and to challenge the idea of productivity. It can clear the way for your voice to emerge.
Write “Morning Pages”: For creative folks—or those who enjoy or aspire to journaling—“Morning Pages” encourages you to write 3-pages of stream of consciousness first thing every morning. I have not done this myself, but know many people who swear by it. Here’s an explanation video from the author of The Artist’s Way.
Create Space in Your Day: One way to create more space in your day is to time block. Beyond that, I suggest actively blocking out free time between meetings or tasks. When that time lands, check in and guide yourself toward how you want to spend it. Yes, it will feel like you’re being unproductive. It may feel lazy. Do it anyway. See what you notice about that time to yourself.
Check in With Your Body: Next time you have a decision to make (big or small), consider taking yourself through the Whole Body Yes exercise. Here’s a great resource from the Conscious Leadership Group, with a video and brief tutorial. This is a wonderful way to listen to yourself by checking in with all your centers of intelligence.
Exercise with an Instructor: Moving your body with the support of an instructor can help you become aware of your body and quiet your rationale mind. Personally, I’ve started valuing the wisdom of my body by taking spin classes. It’s helped me develop an awareness of what my body needs in terms of hydration, rest, and intensity. I end up tapping into that awareness in other parts of my day.
Reduce Other Voices: How can you lower the frequency of volume of other voices in your life? For many people, it will include reducing their screen time on their phones. I’m working on strategies for that myself these days. I’m realizing many things I do on the phone are because others want me there. I’m trying to replace that time with things I want for myself, including simply being present.
Learn Emotion Words: In the past year, I’ve realized I’m not great at recognizing my own emotions—and even worse at naming them. Someone might ask me how I felt, and it was a struggle to find the word. Consider familiarizing yourself with this list of emotion words! It may sound ridiculous, but I keep it handy for myself. These words are huge windows inside yourself.
Start Your Day with Yourself: Try to find even just a few moments at the start of your day to be with yourself. As you wake up, don’t immediately pick up your phone, which is where other people want you to be. Instead, do the thing you tell yourself to do in that moment. When you’re getting dressed, really take a moment to consider what you want to wear that day. When you’re making breakfast, take yourself off your routine and check in with yourself about what you want.
How else might you open the dam of self listening for yourself? Feel free to comment about something you’ve tried or want to try.
Next week marks a full year since I left my startup career behind. In next Sunday’s newsletter, I’ll be giving a peak inside my journey since then, and sharing what I’ve learned about Courage.
Thanks all.
- Elliot
Each week, I ask a handful of questions for you to contemplate so you can connect to Courage in your own way. Take a moment to reflect on these. If you like to journal, feel free to do so.
When you consider that Courage begins by listening to yourself, what becomes possible for you?
How would you rate your ability to do the following things today? What’s the biggest opportunity for you?
Quieting other voices to make room for your voice
Challenging productivity to create time and space for yourself
Supplementing your logic by tapping into other centers of intelligence
How skilled are you at listening to your centers of intelligence today (head, heart, gut)? What part of you are you best at listening to? Least good?
How do you want to commit to listening to yourself more? What kind of accountability would serve you in doing that?