Welcome to the new year!
Many of us are making our resolutions, full of hope – confident that 2023 will be different, better, more – THE year when our dreams come true, when we are the best we can be.
But didn’t we approach 2022 like that? And 2021? And all the years going back to when we first became aware of the new year tradition of making resolutions to wipe away the old, and to rewrite our life script.
And we failed. Every year.
Yet each new January 1, we resolve that this year will be different.
I know this only too well from my own experience of repeating some of the same resolutions or intentions as I call them, year in and year out. I really was committed to them. I really wanted them so badly. And yet, they didn’t happen, or at least not to the extent I intended. Mulling on why this happens and what I need to change, it occurs to me that the missing link is courage. We often say that we need the will to carry out our resolutions, but I have found that will dissipates quite easily, if there is no courage. Will means the power to choose how you act. Courage means facing difficult situations and actually taking action. For example, I have the will to lose weight, but I need the courage to say NO to dessert.
Now we often think of courage as big acts of valor – saving a child from drowning, rescuing someone from a burning building, fighting in a war, taking a stand against a corporation for some dastardly deed. But there’s a need for courage in the little daily things. Our resolutions are fundamentally about change, usually big change. It can be overwhelming to look at our resolutions, and even though we are excited and motivated, feel a sense of dread as the year ticks by, and we see them disappearing into the hole where our previous resolutions had done to die. Courage, daily courage, can help us change.
- Courage to give up sugar
- Courage to say no to dessert or alcohol or coffee
- Courage to awaken each morning, get out of bed and go for a run, regardless of the weather
- Courage to heal an argument with our spouse
At work:
- Courage to give feedback to a team member about their unsatisfactory performance
- Courage to take a stand to have a team member’s back when they are being unfairly treated
- Courage to fire someone when it’s obvious that the person is the wrong fit for your organization
- Courage to say no to a client who is clearly not the right client, but who we feel we must have to meet revenue goals
- Courage to say no to a request for a bribe
Small acts of courage carried out consistently on a daily basis lead to changes in our behaviours, our habits … and therefore our results. Every day, ask yourself:
“What small act of courage do I need to do today to move towards achieving my 2023 intentions”?
And then do it – because as M. Scott Peck notes:
“Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the making of action in spite of fear, the moving out against the resistance engendered by fear into the unknown and into the future.”
