As a life and business strategist, I always have a very busy January. Everyone is so busy setting resolutions and affirming all the great things they plan to do in the new year. However, as time passes by I notice that the excitement dies, momentum stops and people find themselves returning to business as usual. Why does this happen? Ultimately, the reason most people do not experience a greater quality of life is because of fear. We have heard for years all types of cute acronyms for fear; however, the thing that I have learned is that fear is the greatest enemy of your future. Fear wants to sabotage your future and rob you of the live you have been destined to live. Hear are a few lessons for living courageously in 2015.
1. Courage is a choice. As I have stated many times before, I believe that everything in life is a choice. We will encounter adverse circumstances and we will collide with crisis. However, you always have the power to choose how you respond to the circumstances that arise in your life. You can decide to allow the events in your life to break you or benefit you. How you see the circumstances in your life will determine whether or not you conquer. When you choose courage every ceiling constricting your progress is broken. When I chose courage everything about my life changed. The barriers are removed and you are able to experience a life of breakthrough! Decisions determine everything about your life.
2. Courage will never come cheap. So many people marvel at my life and the lives of others. They are amazed at my achievements. However, the reality is that it will cost you to be courageous. Stop being mesmerized by the lives of others and manifest the life of your dreams. You have to be willing to risk it all to rise above the trappings of average. You will be criticized, rejected and even fail at times. Yet that is the cost that a courageous person is willing to pay. Courage is the cost you pay to collide with greatness. Without courage we corrode the quality of our lives. You are not rewarded in life for your potential. Your reward or failure in life is determined by your passion. Passion is what separates the ambitious from the achiever.
3. Courage will require confrontation. You will never conquer anything in life without confrontation. Living courageously is confronting the things that stand in the way of the life that you desire to live. The battles of today birth the triumphs of tomorrow. What you do not face will always be the enemy of your future. When courage speaks the conditions of your life are forced to change. Fear is not a factor in the life of a fighter. You cannot win the war on fear until you are first willing to fight. Prolonged trepidation will never produce triumph. We are confounded by what we refuse to confront. Confrontation is the only way to stay on the course to destiny.
4. Courage will require the cultivation of faith. Faith is not only the substance of things hoped for. Faith is the only currency that can carry you into your prophetic future. Faith simply needs an object to overcome. Faith is not timid. Faith simply takes. The only way to live courageously is to daily cultivate your faith. Faith is always birthed out of a belief. In other words, you must cultivate your thoughts daily. You must choose your thoughts wisely. Commanding your thoughts will create cycles of triumph in your life. When you release fear you can respond with faith. Once fear is dismissed then faith can be developed. Faith that is not developed daily will diminish. When fear is not silenced faith will shrink in your life. Feed your faith and fear will no longer be a factor in your life. Living courageously is silencing the fear, securing your faith and seizing your future!