A few weeks ago, my older sister sent me a YouTube link to "Brave," a song by Sara Bareilles. The more I listened to it, the more I became captivated by the lyrics that were clearly directed at me:
Wow, such powerful words. I began to think of what my life would look like if I were brave enough to speak up or take action without fear. But too often the cynical words of others, and my own thoughts, gets the best of me.
They may say, "You're too young. You're too old. You're going to fail. They're going to laugh at you. You don't have enough money. You don't have the right skills or qualification. You don't have the right connections. You're too slow. You're not confident enough. You're not ready. Don't do it!"
These words can either crush your dreams, or propel you to prove them wrong.
Being brave is not necessarily a massive life-altering decision like quitting your job to take your band out on the road. It's the little things that you are too afraid to do like speaking up, applying for a job that's not in your field or taking ownership of your life.
At some point you have to step out of the comfort zone and step into the next level of your life. There is nothing worse than being uncomfortable in your comfort zone because you were afraid to fail.
Remember, some of the most successful people in the world raked up a few failures along the way. Can you believe that Oprah Winfrey was fired from one of her first jobs because she was "unfit for TV," Walt Disney was told by a newspaper agency that he "lacked imagination," and Steven Spielberg was rejected from film school three times?
Sometimes people see where we are but fail to comprehend who we will become in the future. The trials and roadblocks along the way are meant to stretch you, challenge you, mold you, toughen you and show how badly you want it. Motivational speaker Eric Thomas says that "the process is weeding out the weak!"
Many people, myself included, spend a large amount of time dreaming about the future waiting for the perfect time to execute their plan. But there is never going to be a right time. There will always be work that needs to be done, family who needs accommodating, skills to be learned, debt to be cleared and confidence to be found.
So during that fleeting moment when you're feeling brave make a decision to move forward and stick to it.
A quote that often inspires me by Anaïs Nin reads: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
Has that day arrived for you?