CONFIDENCE AND COURAGE ARE NOT THE SAME

I used to wait to be ready to do anything. I would wait to raise my hand in class, I would wait to post my website, I would wait to invite people to a group, I would wait to tell someone that I like them, and so on and so forth. What was I waiting for? Confidence. Well, the confidence never came. The confidence never showed up. The confidence was elusive. 

And so I would wait. 

And nothing happened.

Until I realized that courage and confidence are not always the same. You see, confidence indicates that you know what you are doing: you are confident in your dancing skills because you've danced for 17 years; you are confident in your job because you've had it for a decade; you are confident at cooking steaks on the grill because you've done it a million times. Confidence is, often times, directly related to experience.

Courage is something else. The definition of courage is, "the ability to do something that frightens one." This indicates that we DON'T necessarily have confidence. We DON'T know what we're doing. We DON'T have our shit together. 

Instead, we decide. 

We decide to post something that we are scared to post. We decide to try something new. We decide to feel the fear and do it anyways, KNOWING that we are not confident in what we are doing. 

And that choice makes all the difference. You don't need confidence to do anything, you just need the courage to try. 

Instead of waiting for confidence, I am going to decide on courage. And I invite you to join me.

In service,

Alex