How can you tell when you’re not actually being courageous, but just plain dumb? How can you know when the time is right to proceed with boldness and audacity, and when it’d be better for you to tone it down and be a little more “realistic.”
There are of course as many answers to this as there are people in the world, but here’s one way to gauge it: If, as you contemplate something important to you, there is no part of you trying to talk you out of it, or make you feel like an idiot, or convince you you’re playing with fire this time…
… then don’t worry – you haven’t gone far enough yet. The answer is to proceed with boldness and audacity.
How can I know this? Because fear will only ever rear its ugly head in response to your recognising something important to your soul. It’s the recognising something important to your soul that comes first. The fear is a primitive response. So long as you stay in the lower leagues, it will leave you alone.
You see, something inside you knows exactly what you’re capable of, and in every moment, it is trying to whisper this in your ear. The only hiccup is that at the exact same time, a different part of you hears what the first part is telling you, freaks out at the thought of you going along with it, and whispers an equal and opposite instruction in your other ear. What’s more, it scales perfectly – the more important to your soul the thing the first part of you whispers, the more the other part will try to stop you.
All the misery in the world comes from crossing these two wires – from seeing that voice that knows just what you’re truly mad of, how capable you really are, as some rogue imposter, whilst seeing the voice that fears everything and everyone as the real us.
The truth is the exact opposite.
Fear doesn’t mean “hold back.” Fear means “go further.”