Do you think of yourself as a brave person?

Would you rush into a burning building to save someone? Would you step in if you saw someone being attacked in the street (specially if there were more than one attacker involved)? Would you speak up if you heard someone being gossiped about? Or being racially or religiously ridiculed? Would you intervene and say something if someone was setting a really terrible example to their young child in public? Are you brave enough to do any of these things?

Maybe … and maybe not. We’d all answer differently to each of these questions, and in reference to other situations that call for courage. It doesn’t mean you’re not brave though. Just that, in certain situations, you may not have the confidence to act the way you feel you should.

A different flavour of brave

But you get up every morning and you go to work. You suffer the commute! You put up with other drivers’ attitudes, and sometimes craziness, or you endure the sardine-tin train journey from hell. You put up with the boss, and with the endless, mindless office politics. You work hard, but it’s not recognised. You’re overlooked for promotion, but you carry on anyway, and you give it all you’ve got.

Sometimes you can barely drag yourself through the day … but you do. And when you get home, after another delightful journey, you put up with trivial arguments and disagreements, liberally sprinkled over an already overcooked day, till you finally flop down in bed, thankful that the daily grind is all over once again.

That takes guts! Don’t sell yourself short. Go easy on yourself, there’s courage involved in even the most mundane of things. You might not be required to lead a SWAT team into action, or deal with violent criminals and drug dealers in the course of your working day, but still, you face the monotonous grind of the nine-to-five, and the minefield that home life can sometimes become. And that takes courage too … maybe a different flavour of courage, but courage nonetheless.

You should be proud of yourself

Be proud of that! Instead of seeing yourself as a failure or a no-hoper, realise that you’re actually a pretty amazing individual (you probably have no idea just how amazing). What you go through every day, and what you’ve been through over the years, no-one knows … but it’s sometimes been hard. Almost unbearable. And you cope. You carry on, and you never quit. And that’s what makes you a winner.

Look in the mirror and see the face that’s looking back at you. Instead of frowning and feeling sorry for yourself and wondering where you life went wrong, smile and see through the facade into the soul of a very special person who’s braver than people know. Braver that even you know!

Trust yourself to do better 

Make friends with yourself and determine to be more trusting of your own actions. To be more confident and sure of yourself. To dare to step outside of your comfort zone. Stop putting yourself down. Start to act as if you can achieve anything. Just act that way and see what happens!

Sure, you’ll make mistakes along the way. You’ll make bad decisions sometimes. You’ll meet with unmitigated disaster from time to time, no good sugar coating the truth. But failing at something doesn’t make you a failure. 

Every day, start with the idea in mind that you can achieve greatness today, if only in small things. Remember, life is a tapestry woven with millions of tiny stitches, and each one is important if the whole thing isn’t going to start unravelling. Spend a few moments looking at your reflection kindly, and reassuring the person in the mirror that things are going to turn out well today. Be reassured! Be confident!  Be brave! You know you already are!

And then take action. That’s the key to all achievement … go ahead and take action, right now, no matter how small or insignificant that action is. Just do it!

Be brave, and just do it!