The Courage You Didn’t Know You Had

In positions of responsibility, one of the biggest challenges one can face is when your credibility is brought to scrutiny. It's all rosy and great while you're flying high but the real test comes when you hit a low. When you make a mistake and you feel you've lost face in front of others, how you handle that situation is a thorough examination of your inner strength.

I've had my own struggles with such difficult situations. Moments such as these would give me extreme anxiety. Self condemnation and reproach would cripple my thinking ability. I would feel exposed. As if all this time I'd been trying to maintain this façade of being much more in control that I actually am. And now the curtain's dropped and they see the real me. They must be thinking I wasn't so good after all. I'd feel under attack. My whole credibility, reputation, everything I'd worked hard for was under attack. All this time I was trying to grow in my career, raise the bar, move up the charts and yet deep inside, extremely vulnerable. I didn't have the stomach to handle situations where my neck was on the line. I was scared of such situations.

I'm sure this is not such an unfamiliar experience for many of us. We manage to grow up to a certain point while curbing our inner fears. This does bring us to a point of stagnation and to grow past that, you need to break through. You need to liberate yourself from your fears. Good news is that you have the strength to do that. But in order to overcome them, you need to face them. You need to stare them in the eye and believe that you can handle them.

How does one do that??

It takes courage. Courage is like a muscle you build everytime you do something that pushes you out of your comfort zone. It takes multiple repetitions to build this muscle. So start performing little acts of courage that force you to confront your fears.

Take writing online as an example. Everytime you write and post something online, you face your fears of being judged. You learn to stand for your thougts and prepare yourself to deal with any response or the lack of it. You gain control of your narrative and reinforce to yourself that what people think about you is none of your business. You essentially reclaim the power that was long forfeited to the outside world.

None of this is easy. But nothing good is. You can do it if you take first baby step. Growing incrementally, one step at a time, will yield remarkable results over a period of time.

There will be a couple of mindset shifts you will need to make that will help you a great deal along this journey.

First of, you're not perfect and you need to really let it sink in. The irony is that we’ve always known this but still we set ourselves perfect expectations. We hardly give ourselves any latitude when we commit errors. Living with a learner's mind set, where you strive for progress and not perfection is the ideal way to handle such challenging situations. You made a mistake. Too bad, let's learn from it and move on.

Secondly, you need to be your biggest supporter and not your biggest critic. You not seeing the value in yourself, not believing in yourself is a problem of you suffering from low self esteem. The problem really is within, not with the outside world. You are not your mistake. You cannot let one poor incident or choice define who you are. You're capable of a lot more and much better. And if you don't see the true value in you, rest assured, no one else will.

Believe in yourself. You are the author of your own story. Go write a fantastic one.