May 29, 2024
Someone said this to me the other day, which is interesting, because I feel anything but brave most days. But it got me thinking… does anyone ever feel brave? Is it actually possible to feel brave yourself, or is it a characteristic we only observe in others?
The person who said this to me was referring to marketing and in particular making videos to promote myself. This is probably the area of marketing that I like least, because like a lot of people I find it easy to criticise myself. My hair, my voice, my expressions, my ever increasing wrinkles, my words… everything. Video is very personal, which is exactly why I both dislike it… and why I do it.
It takes courage to make yourself visible. Whether that’s online line or at work. Particularly when you’re a non native introvert and HSP working in an area such as Pharma and Biotech where English is the working language. It certainly took a lot of courage for me to publish my very first post, and it still takes courage to produce and publish videos on professional platforms such as LinkedIn. But what’s interesting is that the more often I do it, the less courage it takes.
Does that mean I’m getting braver? Or more courageous? Probably not, because there are still plenty of other areas where I feel terrified at the prospect of having to do something. Which basically means that in these areas there’s still a lot of fear surrounding that particular action and I need to use more effort to produce the courage required to do it.
So if you’re an introverted HSP struggling to speak up in English with your team and you’ve labeled yourself as not being brave enough to start making yourself more visible, think again.
You’ll probably never feel brave because that’s a quality others see in us, not one we see or feel in ourselves. Focus instead on the fact that it takes courage to do things that are outside our comfort zone. Because courage is a more obtainable characteristic to produce. If I were to ask you if you’ve ever been brave, you’d probably say no. Yet, most of us can name a time when we did something courageous.
It could have been applying to a job, sitting a test, joining an evening course, riding a bicycle or jumping into a swimming pool for the first time. It could even have been talking to someone you fancy or that time when you actually said ‘No’ to someone, because all of these things require courage to do. So, if you’ve ever done any of these things in your life, you’re able to produce courage to get stuff done.
The interesting thing about courage is that it can require a lot of effort to produce, but thankfully, it generally doesn’t have to be sustained for very long. Because courage is mainly required to actually start doing the thing we’re frightened of doing. Once we’re doing it, the momentum we’ve gained tends to keeps us in motion.
The other interesting thing about courage is that the more fear we have surrounding an action, the more courage and effort that’s required to do that thing. That’s why when I have something scary that I need to do, I first try to understand what the fear is all about. When I learn about the fear and why it’s there, I can start finding out what the fear is doing for me, what it’s good intentions for me are. Typically, it’s trying to protect me against something, against being laughed at, against being rejected, against being humiliated or against me injuring myself in some way.
Understanding why I feel the need to protect myself against that and what I really want instead of the thing I’m frightened will happen is critical. When I understand that the real desire, is to feel appreciated, respected, understood and loved, I can have more compassion with myself rather than feeling resentful and annoyed by the part of me that feels scared and weak right now. And that changes the whole dynamic.
When I no longer judge and label myself as weak and cowardly I no longer have to use as much effort to produce the courage to do whatever it is I need to do.
The other thing with understanding our fears is that once we truly understand them and where they come from, we can start to rationalise them and put them into perspective. The rejection and ridicule you felt at school when you were laughed at for answering incorrectly, as extreme as it was at that time, is unlikely to be repeated by your colleagues when you speak up in English in a meeting at work. But that past experience could be the very thing that’s lodged in your mind as a very likely outcome. Knowing this in your logical mind right now of course is very different from applying that knowledge to a real meeting situation.
What’s required is a technique to help transfer this rational state of being where we can see that the fear is out of proportion and that as a mature adult we have both the knowledge and experience to deal with the situation that we’re in now. When I discovered techniques that can actually do this, I found that my fears didn’t hold me back as strongly from doing the things I wanted to. And the things I still have some residual discomfort around, don’t affect me anywhere near as severely as they did before.
I’ve actually got quite good at doing this for myself now… as well as for others. That’s not by chance though, it’s because saw real value in the techniques I read about and then studied with professionals I admire and completed hours of live training to become a certified as an NLP Practitioner, Mental Health Coach and am in the final stages of becoming a Core Transformation Practitioner.
So if you need help overcoming your fears and want to learn how to do this for yourself, so that so that you can generate enough courage to start speaking up in English at work, and start gaining more visibility and recognition at work, I’m here for you.
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