1 of 365 Acts of Courage

1 of 365 Acts of Courage and Kindness

My first act of courage

Last year I decided the best way for me to inspire people to face their fears in the world is to do it myself. In the eyes of others, I have always been fairly courageous. I think you have to be in order to simply to get by in this world.

But I wanted to ‘up the anti’ and stretch my comfort zone. I wanted to ‘walk my talk’. So, I decided I would do one thing that scares me every day for a year. Plus, an act of kindness each day too because I believe there should be more kindness in the world.

I started out with gusto but by the end of the first month I had discovered something important…it’s almost impossible to face a fear every single day because some fears take a week to complete.

If I had nothing else to do I probably could have still managed it but then reality set in. With three businesses to run, two weddings to organise, and a social life and lifestyle I enjoy, it wasn’t going to happen.

How I failed

Therefore, my very first act of courage is to admit that I failed, straight up! OMG!

And yes, my fear monkey wants to tell me that people won’t respect me because I have failed at this. It wants me to believe that those I am wanting to inspire won’t listen to me or be inspired by me. It wants me to believe that I am a failure.

The truth is that it’s totally ok to fail. Firstly, because at least I gave it a go. Deciding to take an action, then taking that action, is much more powerful than sitting around wondering if I could do it. Then, regretting later that I didn’t even try. There is no room in my life for regrets!

Secondly, it’s ok to have tried and failed because I learnt a lot about myself just by doing it. I’ve been reminded that I am brave, courageous, and bold (and a little bit crazy at times too). I’ve defined in more detail, what’s important to me and realised travel and a social life aren’t something I want to give up for a year.

Just because I failed, it doesn’t mean I am a failure. This one thing does not define who I am! I am not attached to the actions I take, and more importantly, I am not attached to the outcome. I am someone who gives things a go and who walks her talk and this so-called ‘failure’ doesn’t change that.

Now, I get to revise my strategy and goal and either let it go or choose to do it differently. My goal is still the same; to inspire others to face fears by facing fears myself. Therefore, I choose to do it differently.

So, here is my revised plan…I will complete 365 acts of courage (as in face 365 things that scare me) and I will record how I face these fears and what I experience in this blog (and probably do some as live feeds on social media too).

Does this still scare me

Does this scare me? Yes! It absolutely scares the beegeebies out of me! What I am finding even more interesting is that it scares me even more so than when I first decided to do this challenge.

Initially, I had so much self-doubt running through my head. “What if I can’t do it” and “What if I run out of things that scare me” and “What if people make fun of me”. I even tried to talk myself out of it by telling myself I didn’t have enough time in my busy schedule to do this (well I was kind of right there).

But now, I know I can do it this time because there are no time restraints. Plus, a large part of my fear then was whether I would fail or not. Now I’ve already done that (and I didn’t die!), it actually feels more real.

What am I afraid of

My biggest fear now is based around actually facing the fears themselves. I know this is going to be super scary at times and I am going to be stepping into my ‘die zone’ regularly. There’s that mixture of excitement and fear of the unknown. And I love that!

There are also still those thoughts that often go through our minds when we are about to embark on a new adventure or a new direction. “What if I fail?” “What if people judge me?” And specifically for this challenge, “Can I find 365 fears to face?”

The truth is that if I fail again then I will learn even more and if I run out of things that scare me…well, we all know that’s not going to happen because there’s always something that will scare me because fear is a part of being human. And if people chose to make fun of me then who am I to care what they think when they don’t matter to me (unless I let them).

Once I combatted these initial fears with the logic there was just one thing left to do…take action and write this post! Sharing the truth that I had failed was daunting (especially for an overachiever like me) and yet also liberating.

Living in freedom, not fear

Being honest, raw and real is the true essence of who I am when I am living in my wheel of freedom. Because I know and understand how fear plays out it makes facing fears that little bit easier to do (and it gets easier as my comfort zone continues to expand too).

Will there be other times of fear? Absolutely! Without a doubt. And there will be bigger fears to face too. Will I let it stop me? Definitely not! And that’s the difference. There will always be fear, but it only becomes a problem if you let it stop you from doing what you really want to do.

So, it is my hope that as I journey through this challenge, by sharing my experiences with you, it might inspire you to be a little more courageous. It might encourage you to face a fear you’ve always wanted to. And if you get stuck, become a reference point of how you can take the next step.

Together we can become more courageous, confident, brave and bold.

365 Acts of Kindness

The second part of this challenge is something that resonates with one of my core beliefs; that there needs to be more kindness in the world. I believe that kindness can change (and potentially save) a life and you can read more about why I believe this here.

Originally, as part of my 365 days of courage and kindness, the challenge I set myself was to complete a random act of kindness every single day.

I thought, if I can do one act of kindness every day for a year then it might hopefully have a ripple effect and contribute to raising the love and kindness energy throughout the world.

What I discovered while doing this original challenge for a month is that I tend to do random acts of kindness anyway, without even noticing it. Often I would be sitting down to write about my day feeling stuck because I couldn’t remember an act of kindness and my husband would rattle of at least three that he had witnessed me do that day.

The other experience I had was when it came to writing about the acts of kindness it didn’t feel right. It felt like I was being egotistical. It felt false and that took away from the true essence of what it was about for me.

Making a bigger difference

With that in mind, now that this challenge has been revised to be 365 acts of courage and kindness, what I have decided is to drop the kindness part of the challenge. Instead, I believe I can have a bigger ripple effect by running 30day challenges based on random acts of kindness.

So, keep an eye out for those and I would love you to join in and together we can raise the energy of the world by increasing the random acts of kindness together.

Well, that’s it from me for today and the first act of courage…I know there are going to be days when this becomes extremely difficult. But I also know this is also going to be an amazing journey, one that I will learn and grow from, and that excites me!

Thanks for your support in advance and I hope you enjoy reading about my 365 acts of courage xo