How to be Courageous | ep99
Today’s Mindset Monday reads:
We need to stop defining courage by the grand moments and big decisions.
Truth is, courage occurs in the smallest of moments when you decide to listen to your heart.
Courage is so much smaller than you believe it to be, love.
When you finally realize this, you realize how incredibly courageous you are.
What comes to mind when you think of the true meaning of courage?
Perhaps it’s choosing to quit your job, buy the next plane ticket, and move all you know to Europe.
So often we define courage as making big decisions and taking bold action. But what if courage was much smaller than that?
A client who I’ve been working with for 2 years, emailed me to let me know that she was quitting the job that she’d been unhappy with since we first started our work together.
Now, I know, you just might be thinking, “TWO YEARS?! Shirin, you can’t be a really good coach if it took two years for this person to quit their job.”
Listen, I knew from day one that this client would quit their job. But courage isn’t about burning it all down (right away).
Courage takes time, patience and constant support.
The people out there who are making “big moves,” those people who you would label “courageous,” you’re only seeing the end result of 100s of small courageous decisions.
Let’s use the analogy of an iceberg: those “big moves” you’re seeing are just the tip and we’re defining that as the courageous act. In reality, the path of courage runs so much deeper and we’ve lost sight of what being courageous truly is.
We think courage is grand acts of bravery, but we don’t realize that the foundation of those grand acts starts in our day to day in the moments when we:
Speak up for ourselves and others
Say “no” even when it is so hard to do so
Say “yes” even when it is so hard to do so
Make that phone call
Send that text
Get ourselves out of bed
For my client, those moments included working with a coach, prioritizing her self care, speaking up at work, creating clear boundaries… and so much more. All of these “little” courageous moments led to the biggest decision of her life. Her big courageous decision was the sum of all of the moments when she listened to her heart.
When we look at courage this way, we realize that we are all being courageous each and every day.
Courage is so much smaller than you think, love, and I guarantee you that you are courageous each and every day.
A quote to take with you:
“Those acts, those big acts, big moves, big decisions were made up of these small, tiny courageous decisions, courageous little shifts, courageous little habits, courageous little nudges.”
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About your host, Shirin Eskandani
Hi, love! I’m Shirin.
Coach, speaker, writer, and life alchemist.
I teach you how to trust your intuition again, tune out all the BS, and let your heart lead the way.
Because once you strengthen your inner GPS, decisions become easier, boundaries become clearer, and belly laughs become a daily thing.
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME:
I’m a certified life coach (accredited through the International Coach Federation)
My husband and I met on Instagram and we live in Brooklyn, NY with our plant babies
I have a masters degree in Music and was a professional opera singer for twelve years. I worked all over the world singing on stage at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera (more on that later…).
I believe in the woo just as much as I do the work (internal and external). No amount of crystals and affirmations will make up for a lack of a healthy mindset and aligned action.
I love all the Real Housewives franchises. Don’t make me choose one… seriously, don’t.
+ Read the episode transcript here
[00:00:00] Welcome to Wholehearted Coaching: The Podcast. If you're looking for more purpose, more passion, more joy in your life, then you have come to the right place. I am your host, coach and life Alchemist, Shirin Eskandani. And I have worked with thousands of people showing them how to create their dream lives while also living their dream.
[00:00:27] This podcast is where mindset, mindfulness and manifestation meet together. We're going to release limiting beliefs. Put your dreams into motion all while prioritizing your knees, rest and joy. Let's do this love. Hi love. Welcome to Wholehearted Coaching: The Podcast. This is where we take a deeper dive into my mindset Monday post, which you can read on Instagram at @wholeheartedcoaching.
[00:00:55] Or if you want to go even deeper into this week's episode and get my free weekly journal prompts, sign up for my email list and you'll be able to explore the topics we're talking about in this episode. Even further, you can do that in the show notes or by heading to my website. Wholehearted-coaching.com.
[00:01:15] And if you're interested in working with me, whether that's one-on-one in one of my group programs or one of my transformational courses, you can head to my website, wholehearted-coaching.com/offerings to find out more. And of course you can also head to the show notes and all of this information.
[00:01:34] We'll be waiting for you there. All right, love. Welcome to this week's episode. So in today's episode, we're going to be talking about courage. What courage really is. And by the end of this episode, love, I'm going to convince you that you are actually courageous AF. Now, maybe you don't believe that. And maybe you're like, actually, Sharon, I already know that I'm courageous, but.
[00:02:03] Whether or not, you believe you're courageous. By the end of this episode, you're going to have a whole new relationship with courage. You're going to be either leaning even more into your identity as being a courageous person or unlocking that door to you. Being a courageous person before we get into all of that, though, next week's episode is going to be the hundredth episode.
[00:02:29] Of this podcast. I honestly cannot believe it. And I'm just letting you know that it's going to be an amazing episode. Like I have some special guests, there's going to be some fun things we're doing. It's going to be. Really amazing. So stay tuned for episode 100. It's going to be absolutely incredible.
[00:02:52] And it's coming out if you're listening live on Valentine's day. Um, okay. How amazingly timed is that? So trust me, there's going to be so much love and joy on that episode, you are going to. To check it out. Okay. But now getting back to episode 99, which is all about courage. So today's mindset Monday reads.
[00:03:19] We need to stop defining courage by the grand moments and big decisions. Truth is courage occurs in the smallest of moments. When you decide to listen to your heart, courage is so much smaller than you believe it to be low. When you finally realize this, you realize how incredibly courageous you are. So I believe we've completely lost sight of what courage is.
[00:03:49] And this podcast episode is actually inspired by a client of mine. So this client and I have been working together for a little over two weeks. She first started as a one-on-one client. And then she joined my group program, wholehearted woman, and now she has been part of the alchemy collective. And in the alchemy collective, we have a group platform and on the platform we were talking about new beginnings and she said, y'all, I'm so excited for my next new beginning because I just quit my job.
[00:04:26] Now listen, everyone in the chat was going wild and congratulating her. We were all sharing in her joy, but as her coach, I was just so incredibly happy from our first session together. This client wanted to quit her job a little over two years ago. She wasn't really happy there. She didn't really like the work culture.
[00:04:51] She was overworked and she knew that she wanted to leave. And that path, that journey to finally deciding, to leave took a little bit over two years now, some of you are saying, well, Sharon, are you a really good coach? Because, um, if she hated her job, it took her two years to quit. So, Matt, I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like great coaching to me.
[00:05:16] Here's the thing. I know this to be true about courage. It takes time. It takes patience and it takes constant support. You see, we think courage is all about these big moves, right? Where you quit your job, you leave that relationship. You move to Spain. And what we're actually seeing is yes, a courageous act.
[00:05:43] It's a big moment, this heroic moment, but that decision. Was made possible because of hundreds, if not thousands of small courageous decisions, I want you to think of the analogy of an iceberg, right? That big courageous act of quitting the job is just the tip of the iceberg. But the sum how that actual courageous act came to be.
[00:06:16] It's so much deeper, right? There's this entire iceberg underneath the word. And that is what I witnessed with my client. That is what I witnessed with each and every one of my clients. And that is what I have witnessed in my own life. If I look back on some of those quote unquote courageous acts, right?
[00:06:35] People, a lot of people look at me and they say, You're so courageous in you move to New York, you, you know, started singing opera, then you quit your job. Then you did all these other things. And then you got married to your partner after 16 months. What here's such a courageous person and yes, but, but wait, we're all courageous.
[00:06:56] And we're going to talk about why we are all courageous every day, but those acts, those big acts, those big moves, those big decisions. They were made up of these small, tiny courageous decisions, courageous little shifts, courageous little habits, courageous, little nudges that I leaned into over years. And this client of mine.
[00:07:28] Yes. It took a little over two years for her to quit her job. But her first courageous act was to start working with me. The other courageous acts I witnessed her do during that job was to really prioritize her self care was to start speaking up more at work was to start really creating clear boundaries in her professional and personal life and all of those decisions, those courageous, courageous decisions.
[00:08:02] Led to this life changing life altering decision, uh, finally quitting her job. Love courage is really so small, right? Courage is in those small moments when you actually listen to your heart. And I'm saying heart because courage, the root, the etymology of courage comes from co which means heart. And it used to mean courage used to mean when you would listen to and take action from your heart.
[00:08:44] That is all courage is courage is being vulnerable, courageous, asking for help. Courage is saying no courageous saying yes. Courage is just getting out of bed some days, all of those little moments, they create the sum, the sum, which then leads to those bigger decisions, whatever they may be. We think courage is grand acts of bravery.
[00:09:17] Like moving across the country, quitting our jobs or leaving our partners. And yes, those are very courageous things to do, but those things are not possible without those small moments, those small moments where we speak up for ourselves, where we sign up for that thing, where we say no, where we say yes, or we make that phone call where we send that text when we do that thing, that scares us.
[00:09:40] And when we look at courage this way, I hope you're realizing that. You're actually being courageous each and every day, each and every day, you are doing something that is linked to your heart. Something that scares you just a little bit. I mean, heck it is courageous in and of itself to engage with this world that we got going on.
[00:10:04] Right. And here you are doing it. Love each and every day. Here you are with all of you with all of your heart doing it again and again. Yes. Courage. Is those brave moments, those big moments? Yes. Courage is running into a building that's on fire. Yes. Courage is finally quitting your job, but courage is also calling up a friend and saying I'm having a really rough time.
[00:10:33] Courage is pressing play on a podcast, titled courage, even when you're like, oh, I don't, I don't want to work on myself right now. That is courage. Love. I want you to reflect on this past week or this weekend or this day, even, and I want you to see. This day, this weekend through the lens of what we're talking about, of courage of you doing those small things that scare you.
[00:11:05] Oh, you doing those small things that are in service of your heart. And if you look back and you don't see those things, perhaps this is a nudge. For you to start, maybe listening a little bit more to your heart each day, making that commitment to your heart, a commitment to your courage. And if you look at the day or the weekend or whatever the timeframe is for you, and you start seeing that courage.
[00:11:34] Oh, man, you feel so strong. Don't you? When I look at my life through this lens of like, okay, if courage is these small moments where you listened to my heart, whoa, I am courageous a F for me, the most courageous thing I can do is to ask for help. I don't like asking for help, but. I know I am being so strong and so courageous.
[00:12:02] When I do that, I want to share a quote from what I call our patron Saint Bernay brown. She spoke on courage. She wrote about courage and she wrote. The root of the word, courage is core the Latin word for heart in one of its earliest forms. The word courage had a very different definition than it does today.
[00:12:28] Courage originally meant to speak one's mind by telling all one's heart over time. This definition has changed and today courage is more synonymous with being heroic. Heroics is important and we certainly need heroes, but I think we've lost touch with the idea that speaking honestly and openly about who we are about what we're feeling about our experiences.
[00:12:54] Good and bad is the definition of courage. Heroics is often about putting our life on the line. Ordinary courage is about putting our vulnerability on the line in today's world. That's pretty extraordinary.
[00:13:13] I love that quote love. I know you're courageous. I know you are, and it's time for you to truly understand that, to see yourself in that light, to claim that identity for yourself. Because I know it is the small moments of courage that create the biggest changes in our life. When we show ourselves that we can do things that truly mean so much to us, things such as boundaries, things such as asking for help things such as just reaching out to people when we're not feeling so great.
[00:13:59] Those things we show to ourselves. That were really strong and capable and they were really brave and they lead to some of the biggest transformations. It's the small moments. My love that you need to focus on those small moments who really show you, who you truly are. So let's not fixate so much on those big decisions on those grand moments.
[00:14:28] Yes, they will happen. But if we really shift our focus to those small moments of courage, I know with a hundred percent certainty, those grand moments will come around. You are courageous love. So to end, I want you to think of one thing that's really resonating with you from today's episode. And once you have that thing, we're going to take a deep breath in together and out.
[00:14:58] So finding that one insight breathing in holding it. And breathing out until next week. I will talk to you then. Thank you so much for joining me this week. If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend subscribe or follow where you love listening to. And if you haven't yet leave a review, you can do this on apple podcasts, task box, pod, chaser, or podcast addict until next week.
[00:15:36] Love.