Tagging our inner child to bring our bravery back.
Remember being adventurous as a child? We would play with wild abandon and embrace our bravery without realizing it as such. Maybe it was climbing something tall without thinking about all the what ifs. Maybe it was understanding the inherent danger in something and pressing on with caution in pursuit of the unknown outcome that pulled us toward it in the first place. Maybe it was playing make-believe and pretending to be something or someone we weren't. Whatever it was, we were more likely to just go for it than we are as older adults. There's this bill and that deadline to consider, fair enough when we're talking about paying a mortgage or keeping the lights on. There's that co-worker that doesn't think you're worth your weight, or the troll on the internet hiding behind their own insecurities while picking on someone else's. So much fear of the unknown.
The more we age, the more our bravery tends to get covered with layer after layer of this fear and it's old pal doubt. But how do we get back to brave? Pssst...that's the #Go52 theme of the week (Week 46).
With Veterans' Day just a few day behind us, it's easy to capture a snapshot of bravery in the uniformed women and men in our armed forces. While there is no doubt that they are brave, so is the teacher who works day in and day out with the blank slates that are children, so are the entrepreneurs who are creating opportunities from a semblance of an idea meant to solve a problem, as are each of us in our own right, whether we believe it or not. They all have at least one thing in common, it is the ability to leap from the known into the unknown, to transition from a story where you know the ending to one that has yet to be written. All of us have the ability, we have all at some point in our life taken a leap without realizing just how big of a leap it was.
Think about how you used to navigate through life as a child. When we were all in school, we were all actively searching for answers. More often than not, our search for answers came through experimentation in some way, shape, or form. The fact that we were willing to search at all was brave. Who knew what we were going to find or whether it would align with our perceived outcome? We were forging through life, one grade at a time, as little brave sponges; learning and growing. Do you remember what that felt like? Harness that and take small steps to return to the brave explorer you used to be. Here's our weekly illustration...
What does bravery look like to you? Illustrate it. Share it. Tag it. #Go52.