“From caring comes courage.”
–Confucious

“Courage reveals purpose.”
–Ken Streater

“Courage is the price that life extracts for granting peace.”
–Amelia Earhart

Courage is far more than having the character, desire, and skills to fight fires, be the CEO of a large company, or score the winning goal as an all-star athlete. While these people exhibit one type of courage, the most important form of courage in order to live your dreams is one that you already have.

The word courage means “of the heart.” There are three types of courage: assumed, instant, and deep. The people described above have assumed courage, where heart and will combine to create leaders who accept risk at their work. Instant courage is what is needed to perform an instantaneous act of bravery, like pushing a child away from a careening car. This courage is of the heart with no thought required. Deep courage is simply being introspective, where you gently peel back layers of your heart in order to discover what really matters.

The word deep does not mean that this form of courage is hard to reach, but only that you use it to look inside and find what you really care about. This courage allows your unique greatness to be revealed and shared with the world, enlivening all of us as you live with passion and purpose. This is the gift of courage.

Start today to benefit from the gift of courage to yourself. Reflect on one thing that you would like to do or change, ask yourself why you have not done this, peel back a layer of your heart to find this answer, come to know the heart of this matter, then take one small step towards doing what you want. One small step. One small step. By figuring out why you have not done what you want you can figure how out to do it, one small step at a time. Finding and understanding "the why" takes courage, but when you treat yourself kindly in this process you then gain the strength to take that one small step.