What Matters/Courage

Courage

Rosa Parks demonstrated her courage as she fought for racial equality in Montgomery Alabama.

Courageous people choose to place their well-chosen goals ahead of their fears, convenience, impulses, or other short-term comforts and enticements. Courage is the choice to act according to your values and pursue your goals rather than be distracted or seduced by temptations. Courageous people understand the dangers and feel the fear, and then find the strength, perseverance, and self-discipline to meet the challenge and do the right thing. Strength and wisdom combine as you ward off temptation, overcome obstacles, meet the challenge, and act according to your values. Commitment prevails over comfort.

Courageous people:

• Have a strong commitment to achieving significant goals,
• Take full responsibility for their actions and results,
• Often have attained skills and abilities that prepare them to overcome challenges and reach those goals, and
• Are familiar with fear and hardship are experienced in overcoming it.

Although we often think first of physical courage in the form of valor and bravery, courage is also manifest as endurance entailing perseverance, industry, and diligence and as moral courage requiring integrity, genuineness, and honesty.

Assignment:

• Study this progression of action stages, reading the description of each stage beginning with "thrashing" and progressing through each stage to "real progress".
• Determine what stage you are now in.
• Follow the instructions for "moving on" from your present stage to the next stage.
• Always do your best.

Suggestions for further reading:

• Warrell, Margie (2008). Find Your Courage: 12 Acts for Becoming Fearless at Work and in Life. McGraw-Hill. pp. 304. ISBN 978-0071605373. 
• Miller, William Ian (2002). The Mystery of Courage. Harvard University Press. pp. 360. ISBN 978-0674008267.