Winston Churchill once said, “Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts.”
Webster defines courage as one of bravery, fearlessness, and mettle; mettle, meaning ready to do the utmost. Too often in today’s culture, sadly, we think of courage as the dangerous – dare I say, “stupid” – acts we see performed on reality shows. Those people are often display a combination of fearlessness and foolishness, not the courage that people of character exhibit.
To be successful in life, one needs to have a toughness that kicks in when needed. Certainly, it takes courage to risk one’s life to help another. Fearlessness and bravery are essential components of courage, but real courage not only requires overcoming fear, but doing so for a noble purpose. Sometimes the risks faced are not physical, but moral, emotional, financial, or to the detriment of our social standing.
It takes courage to tell the truth about a mistake we’ve made that has harmed someone. It takes courage to defend the values we believe in when that position is not popular with our peers. Courage is required of the person who stands up to a bully on behalf of another, who disagrees with a boss who is making a mistake, or who turns in a fellow employee for stealing. It takes courage to continue chasing a goal after previous attempts have failed, and especially when others encourage you to quit. Courage involves the willingness to face risks, overcome fears, and live by our values. It is an essential attribute of personal character.
When faced with a difficult situation, one where the choice could affect us negatively, it is natural to be apprehensive. There is a tendency to let the fear of bad consequences keep us from achieving the things in life we most want. When we back down from risk, we let fear control us, instead of our values and goals. We are afraid that if bad things happen, we won’t be able to handle it. We are unsure that we can face life’s troubles and difficulties successfully. Of course, it is possible that some really bad things could happen to us. Most of the time, however, the consequences we fear are not life threatening.
My mother used to tell me, “The next five years will go by anyway”. She meant that five years from now, the situation that I was so upset about probably wouldn’t matter much in my life. And, she was proven right, almost without exception.
So, a key to being courageous is overcoming fear. One method of overcoming fear is to change how we think about life’s problems, disappointments and difficulties. Once we convince ourselves that we can handle the consequence of failure, fear loses its power over us.
Courage is not some magical trait we are born with or acquire from slaying dragons. It comes from our way of thinking about ourselves, our attitude toward problems and disappointments, and our commitment to our values. If you want to be a person with courage, chose to act courageously.
Kent Shafer 