How to Practice Being Brave
How to Practice Being Brave
This is something that I have embarked on in the last few years of my life, and it has made all the difference. One of the key virtues to cultivate in your life is courage. It is one of the eight virtues that are actually scientifically proven to increase your happiness.
That’s where being brave comes in. This is a way that I have been trying to cultivate courage. I have a little thing that I do that I call “practicing being brave”. Courage and being brave is like a muscle. You have to use it in order for it to grow stronger and for you to cultivate more of it. This is how to practice being brave!
Ralph Waldo Emerson said “He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret to life.” He puts that so beautifully because at the root of practicing, being brave and being courageous, that there is an underlying fear of some sort. So I have four tips for you today as always. I like to give you actionable items that you can do to emerge empowered and then I’m going to share with you a few of the ways that I have practiced being brave.
Go Outside of Your Comfort Zone
The first thing is practice going outside of your comfort zone; try something new. Consciously and consistently practicing small acts of courage can have a cumulative effect. If we start small, then we can start being brave in larger areas of our lives. Practice going outside of your comfort zone — Ralph Waldo Emerson style every day.
Give Yourself Permission to Fail
The second thing is to give yourself permission to fail. There have been several things that I have tried that were new and way outside of my comfort zone that I simply had to give myself permission to fail. And then it didn’t seem so scary.
We have this skewed perception as adults that we need to be naturally good at something. The first time that we try, and that is simply not true. More often than not, we are not going to be good at something that we try yet. If we persist in it, we will become really good at that. Or find something that brings us joy into our lives.
So give yourself permission to have what I like to call a “terrible first try”. Give yourself permission to fail and that helps the fear to dissipate.
Identify Your Underlying Fear
Number three is identify your underlying fear. Why are you afraid to do this thing? Just recognizing that fear helps to dispel that fear and it gives us power over it.
Do some deep soul searching and just see if you can identify the underlying fear and then practice being brave. If you can name a few, it lessens its power. Just recognizing the fear itself will help dispel some of that fear.
Encouragement from Self & Others
Number four is to find encouragement from yourself or others. Support and encouragement from others can be a powerful motivation.
And if you have a support system that can cheer you on, that’s wonderful use their help and let them cheer you on. I also want you to know that you can provide that for yourself and that you can cheer yourself on and by giving yourself permission to fail, then it just opens the doors for you to cheer yourself on through the whole process.
How to Practice Being Brave – Examples
I’d like to share with you today. A few examples of what I have done to practice being brave. Quite a few years ago, I had never actually gone on a backpacking trip — maybe once when I was a teenager and we slept out under the stars for one night. It really wasn’t like a true backpacking trip. I have a dear friend who loves to backpack and I decided I was going to practice being brave.
I decided to go backpacking and I didn’t quite know what to expect and I didn’t even know if I would like it. I decided to practice being brave! It turns out that I really enjoy backpacking. In fact, I just returned home from a ladies trip. I went on a backpacking trip with amazing, strong, capable, confident women. We went on an incredible backpacking trip and I have discovered something that I love because I practiced being brave.
Another example is the time I auditioned for a major production. I am a dancer and I used to own a dance studio. I love to dance and it brings me so much joy. I’m also getting older so my body count do all the things that it used to be able to do. But I still love to dance. I saw a flyer for auditions for a major production with a world renowned choir at Temple Square – Sutton Foster and Hugh Bonneville were going to participate in that production as well.
I told myself that I was going to go and just audition and I knew I was in my late thirties and I knew that there would be a whole bunch of college girls and that my chances were pretty slim of actually like making the cut and, and being a part of the production. But I hadn’t auditioned in a really long time.
I decided I was going to practice being brave and sure enough, when I showed up, (in my late thirties) the majority of the dancers there were college aged. So I just kept cheering myself on. I made the first cut, then the second cut and eventually I was actually accepted as a dancer into this major production!
We had three nights of performances in front of a sold-out audience every night of 21,000 people. I had actually never danced in front of that many people before in my life, and here I was in my late thirties and got to experience a standing ovation in front of 21,000 people for three consecutive nights!
It was such an incredible experience — all because I practiced being brave! I went outside of my comfort zone and decided to try something. I gave myself permission to fail and I knew that the chances were slim, that I would make the cut for this audition. Yet I gave myself permission to fail and to just go and have the actual experience of auditioning..
I identified the fear of just simply knowing I was afraid that my body wouldn’t be able to perform the way it had performed in my teenage years and my twenties. My husband encouraged me to audition and was my cheering squad. I didn’t actually dare tell anyone else I was auditioning, but he totally encouraged me to do it.
It was one of the experiences that I will never, ever forget. I actually got to meet Sutton foster and Hugh Bonneville. Hugh and I had the same stage entrance so I got to chat it up backstage with Hugh Bonneville and experience a standing ovation from 21,000 people!
It was pretty incredible all because I was practicing great being brave. So my latest example that I’d like to share with you of practicing being brave is this, as I was setting out this year on some, I sat down and I really wanted to look at my upcoming goals. And I found myself writing down that I wanted to be an author.
That is something I have never even considered before. I thought, what is the first step to being an author? And it was to write an article and submit it for publication.
I am pleased to announce that my article was accepted by the latter day woman magazine. Where there issue number seven. It’s an online publication that I love their motto is: “Your voice matters”. I feel honored to be a part of their latest edition and invite you to visit them at https://latterdaywomanmagazine.com/2021/09/13/i-am-hand-lettering-statements/
I hope by giving you some examples of practicing, being brave in my own life, that you can really ask yourself, “how can I practice being brave?”
Ember Pilati is a Life & Relationship Coach, Podcaster and Motivational Speaker. You can find her at:
Instagram: @emerge_empowered
Website: www.emergeempowered.org
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/emerge-empowered-with-ember-pilati/id1543504663
