The Wise Path/Courage

—Value-based action despite temptation

Being There

Courageous people choose to place their well-chosen goals ahead of their fears, convenience, impulses, or other short-term comforts and enticements. Courage is the choice to act according to your values and pursue your goals rather than be distracted or seduced by temptations. Courageous people understand the dangers and feel the fear, and then find the strength, perseverance, and self-discipline to meet the challenge and do the right thing. Strength and wisdom combine as you ward off temptation, overcome obstacles, meet the challenge, and act according to your values. Commitment prevails over comfort.

Courage is knowing the risks and deciding to act.

Courageous people:

• Have a strong commitment to achieving significant goals,
• Take full responsibility for their actions and results,
• Often have attained skills and abilities that prepare them to overcome challenges and reach those goals, and
• Are familiar with fear and hardship are experienced in overcoming it.

Although we often think first of physical courage in the form of valor and bravery, courage is also manifest as endurance entailing perseverance, industry, and diligence and as moral courage requiring integrity, genuineness, and honesty.

As we begin to explore more of the world, we see opportunities that can only be seized by taking more risks. We can go away to summer camp or stay home. We travel across the country to enroll in the challenging college of our dreams, or we can stay conveniently near home and settle for something more comfortable. We can seek a challenging job or tolerate a boring one. We either decide to yield to temptation and avoid taking risks, or we summon the courage to act on our values and do what we believe is right, despite the temptations of an easier path. Courageous people recognize that exerting extra effort or taking risks now can provide substantial benefits throughout the future. Running a marathon, graduating from college, job interviews, career advancement, serious relationships, delivering a speech, admitting to a mistake, and studying for tomorrow’s test all require us to leave comfort behind to attain a greater outcome. Achievement requires courage.

Getting There

Learning from the following resources and conscientiously practicing the skills they describe will help you move from Engagement to Courage.

Recommended Study:

• Learn the nature of courage and of courageous people,
  • Consider Margie Warrell's Ten Commandments of Courage.
  • Study the materials at FindYourCourage.com.
• Increase your commitment to achieving significant result.
  • Dream on, dream bigger—connect with what inspires you deeply.
  • Choose an inspiring dream and commit to fulfilling it.
  • Recognize the essential contributions you make to various communities.
  • Focus on the possibilities of success.
• Increase your skills needed to attain your goals.
• Reduce your fears.
  • Transcend fear mongering.
  • Practice using courage to increase your confidence and competence.
    • Complete an appropriate level ropes course.
  • Choose to succeed when encountering adversity.
  • Determine how to maintain safety—control the risks—as you proceed forward.
• Act courageously everyday:
  • Always act according to your own well-chosen values.
  • Become fully responsible for your choices, actions, and outcomes; no excuses, don't blame others.
  • Adhere to The Four Agreements.
  • Consume wisely; spend carefully
    • Use product ratings from GoodGuide to guide your purchases.

Recommended Reading:

Reading and studying these books will help increase your courage:

• Find Your Courage: 12 Acts for Becoming Fearless at Work and in Life,  by Margie Warrell
• The Mystery of Courage, by William Ian Miller
• The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz
• Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson
• The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods, by Julia Hill

Moving On

Live courageously as you work toward doing good.

Context:

The diagram links to the states that neighbor this one. This can help orient you to this state both horizontally, showing the emotion and cognition states at this level of development, and vertically showing the action levels before and after this one.

	Doing Good
Emotionally Talented	Courage	Knowing
	Engagement

Quotations:

• “Life shrinks or expands in proportion on one's courage.” ~ Anaïs Nin
• “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
• “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
• “To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.” ~ Bertrand Russell
• “The energizing catalyst for choosing growth over safety is courage.” ~ Nelson H. Goud