B R A V E R Y

Bravery – the willingness to take calculated risks and step outside of one’s comfort zone.

I would bet that anyone who has ever been called “brave” wasn’t labeled so without first being scared out of their mind. This past year, I (MiKalla) told my best friend that the thing I presently wanted to do scared me, and she replied with, “sometimes the thing you’re most scared of doing is the thing you are most equipped and ordained to do.”

I think sometimes we are reluctant to do things due to fear that’s strictly rooted in lies. I was scared because, honestly, I didn’t think I was good enough – I thought I was underqualified and wouldn’t measure up.

The thing I wanted to do was to intern at Elevate.

How many times have you ignored a passion or looked over an opportunity simply because it scared you?

Most likely you’ve heard it said that if you’re comfortable you’re probably not growing, or you might have heard the quote “nothing great ever comes from comfort zones.” Chances are, if it doesn’t terrify you at least a little bit, maybe you shouldn’t do it.

For certain seasons, kids experience growing pains – they hurt in order to grow taller. In the same way, we have to choose to press through fear and the uncomfortable in order to reach new heights – or as we might say, “live and lead at a higher level.”

Bravery is exhibiting courage, and courage is “having the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc. without fear.” In my opinion, you can be scared and still be brave, but you can’t live in fear and simultaneously live in bravery.

“Scared” is fleeting, but “fear” has a tendency to stick around – the first is healthy, but the latter is not.

The point is, bravery isn’t the absence of the scary, but rather choosing to face it anyway. If we lived in fear we would probably never get married, we definitely wouldn’t score our dream job, and I doubt we would even ride a roller coaster.

Life is just fuller when we face fears. So next time the thing you want to do scares you out of your mind, I dare you to do it. It’s good that you’re scared because all brave humans were once scared humans.