Courage

Every time you say you’ll do something and you do it your confidence grows. Every time you choose to be honest, even when lying is easier, your confidence grows. Every time you believe in something and your actions consistently reflect that belief, your confidence grows.

For a person with a conscience, confidence is equivalent to integrity. The more you keep your word, the more you believe in yourself because you trust you’ll do the things you say you’ll do. To be confident, your actions must reflect your beliefs. You don’t have anything to prove. All you need to do is be honest—in what you say, promise and do.

If you fail it’s because you weren’t honest. You fooled yourself or others into believing you were capable of doing something. Never bluff. Failing is OK as long as you’re honest. If you say you’re going to do something and you fail to do it, own your mistake immediately. Admit that you didn’t know what you were doing and you didn’t anticipate the failure.

When you avoid scary things you avoid life because most of the best things in life are scary at first, until you face them and overcome the fear. The key then, is to form a habit of always facing your fears. Make this a rule.

When you realize you’re nervous about something, that’s the sign you must make sure you do it, even if you don’t particularly want to. See it as practice if nothing else. You’ll overcome the fear, which will make you more confident, which will in turn make every challenge you face in the future easier to face and your life will become more full because the range of things you feel you can do will increase.

If you’re always completely honest in what you say and how you behave, the fear will diminish. It’s normal to feel fear when talking in public, trying new experiences, going to job interviews and meeting new people. It means you care. It’s not a bad thing. Fear is OK and the most important thing you can do is not try to hide it.

Psychologist Susan Jeffers explains, in Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, that confident people aren’t fearless—they’ve just learned to act while afraid. The key thing to understand is that no amount of thinking, planning, or reassuring removes fear—movement does, even the smallest step.

Jeffers discovered the real terror we feel isn’t the failure itself—it’s believing we can’t handle whatever happens next. When we replace “What if it goes wrong?” with “What if I can handle it?”—possibility opens. Jeffers shows that courage doesn’t arrive first—taking action creates it, and the cycle strengthens each time. Even when things go badly, we learn, adapt, grow—and fear loses some of its power. Jeffers warns readiness never arrives—people who change their lives step forward while still scared. The answer then is to proactively approach fearful situations. Organise small things that scare you into your routine and experience fear so often that you become accustomed to it. Never avoid it.

Waiting to feel ready guarantees stagnation, because confidence only arrives after action, not before it. Avoidance strengthens fear. Each time you retreat, the brain learns that discomfort is dangerous. Facing fear — even in tiny steps — trains confidence and shrinks perceived threats.

Psychologist Kelly McGonigal concurs that stress is not the enemy. Your belief about stress determines whether it harms you or strengthens you. In The Upside of Stress, McGonigal explains that when you view stress as a challenge your body is preparing you to meet, your physiology shifts from damage to resilience. Stress becomes fuel instead of friction. The body’s stress response is a resource. Increased heart rate, sharpened attention, and elevated energy are not signs of danger — they are performance enhancers. McGonigal explains that by reframing stress as readiness, you convert anxiety into capability. Your interpretation controls the effect. Your mindset can change your biology. Simple reappraisal (“my body is helping me respond”) shifts blood flow, hormones, and cognitive performance. Stress becomes a tool. This mental reinterpretation is one of the most replicable, well-supported interventions in psychological science.

Stress naturally pushes humans toward others — a built-in bonding response. Helping, collaborating, or confiding triggers oxytocin, protecting the heart and increasing emotional resilience. Stress handled alone burns energy; stress shared builds strength. This is another reason why honesty is so important. By being open about how you feel when you’re stressed you allow bonding to relieve the stress instead of allowing solitude to magnify it.

Meaning transforms stress into growth. Difficult situations become harmful when they feel pointless, but become strengthening when tied to purpose. McGonigal demonstrates that linking stress to something you value — your work, your relationships, your identity — turns strain into motivation and deepens commitment.

Repetition of manageable challenges builds a stronger nervous system: enhanced recovery, improved problem-solving, increased confidence. McGonigal shows that exposure to difficulty trains your physiology the same way physical exercise does — through adaptive strengthening.

Embracing stress increases resilience. Choosing to step into difficult tasks, purposeful obstacles, and meaningful discomfort expands your capacity. Stress becomes evidence that you’re engaging with life instead of avoiding it. A stress-free life is not a good life — it’s a small one.

When you see stress as a signal of what matters, you stop fearing it. You work with it. You grow from it. Stress strengthens you when you stop resisting it and start interpreting it as preparation. The challenge is not to eliminate stress, but to harness it — to let it sharpen your mind, deepen your connections, reinforce your purpose, and turn strain into the raw material of resilience.

Try  it to focus on what makes you stressed, anxious or fearful but instead to focus on your goals and your purpose. Remember what you truly care about. Focus on that and try to view the stress positively — it’s preparing you to overcome the challenges you need to face to achieve your mission.

Conclusion: never avoid fear, unless it’s a danger to your health. Make a habit of facing every fear, even if it’s just for practice. See stress and fear as a positive thing that will make you grow. Be completely honest about how you feel to reduce stress and increase human connection.

Tip: if you want structured, safe practice for building courage go to thewisestswords.com/scare. I’ve published 365 small things you can do, one a day for a year to build your resilience to fear.