Personal Leadership via Small Acts of Courage

There are big undertakings of courage which can change your life and the lives of others in one fell swoop ….  AND  There are those smaller deeds of authentic actions filled with heart that will change the course of your day and your life over time.   This blog post is about those smaller acts of courage, so often not heralded and certainly not so often talked about.  These small feats of courage and integrity are often more acts of the heart and the spirit more than anything else.

Here are a few examples of small acts of courage:

  • Live to and honour your own personal values
  • Raise your personal standards
  • Say YES to your own personal fulfillment
  • Hold your self EQUALLY as important
  • Share your ideas
  • Make meaningful connection with your own aliveness , passion and spirit
  • Be impeccable to your word
  • Listen to others completely (put yourself aside while listening)
  • Feel things fully
  • Keep and maintain your focus on your desires
  • Be open to waiting in uncertainty until clarity comes
  • Identifying and crossing the finish line

As you can see small acts of courage still require you to go beyond possible limited beliefs and perhaps step out into uncharted territory.   The level of risk becomes self-defined as it depends on how you look at a behavior – to determine whether or not it is still courageous for you.

Here are just a few common barriers and challenges to being courageous:

  • Getting caught up in the conditioning of doubt (not trusting your intuition, resisting feeling things fully,  resisting making decisions)
  • Paying more attention to the butterflies than to your desire
  • Hiding out a little from anticipated feelings of conflict or emotional overwhelm
  • Letting the expectation of fear, or possible embarrassment prevent you from trying
  • Not trusting your intuition
  • Trying to control the outcome of things  (to avoid something from happening)
  • Getting caught up in resistance, procrastination, or singular perspectives
  • Not getting the results you want

The good news is barriers to courage can be overcome.  In under taking a path of personal leadership you can be well on your way to getting around any perceived barriers to living a courageous, authentic life.

Here a few getting started tips for ways to increase your own small acts of courageous heart:

  • Identify how small acts of courage show up in your own life
  • Heighten your awareness of what nurtures your own courage.   Is it thoughts of protecting or nurturing your children, thoughts of championing for people or animals who can’t fully fend for themselves?  Environmental conservation, equality for all,  removing ignorance in the world…
  • No matter what heightens your own courage – why not leverage that to increase your own capacity for demonstrating courage?     Tie your own behaviours to what is meaningful for you.    Dislike the ignorance in the world?  Why not conceptually tie your own powerful self expression as a way of supporting the transformation of ignorance in the world?    You see – it doesn’t matter what you perceive the threat to be – or the solution you identify – the idea is to use the emotional energy associated with it – to inspire your own actions. Do you see how this could work?
  • Be very , very clear about what you choose to say yes to, and what you choose to say no to.   It takes courage to be this decisive.    If you’ve got somethings where you are sitting on a fence with a maybe or two  – perhaps there are moment of courage that will assist you to say yes – or no to them as appropriate.
  • Reach out and do something for the benefit of others:

Lift up someone
Show compassion
Show caring for someone
Pay it forward
Demonstrate trust
Tell the truth

Small acts of courage can take many forms and they can be specific to your definition of self-defined success.  I encourage you to find your own definition of what courage is for you – for it is your own choices that will move you forward the fastest.  Remember too that courage expands when you use it.

Read other courage related posts

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