This is a re-run of a blog from a couple of years ago, for which I make no apology – it is worth another read.

How often do we get stuck in the same routine, doing the same thing, often with the same people and coasting through our work and even our lives. It’s easy and comfortable and we feel safe. But what would happen to your life if you did one brave thing everyday?

I guess the first question is what constitutes a brave thing? Is it something heroic, where you face mortal danger? Or is it simply something that moves you out of your comfort zone – even for a few minutes, something that gives you a different perspective? I would say both apply, but the opportunity to do the later is much more readily available.

The reality for many people is that they stay safe, play a small game, and settle for OK, while justifying why they can’t or won’t do something simply because it is too risky.

Now I’m not talking about waking up polar bears here! I’m talking about everyday stuff, the opportunities that fly in and out of our lives while we are running the potential scenarios and outcomes through our heads. We look at the risk – real or imagined – and if we don’t like it we create all sorts of reasons why we can’t take the opportunity. Most of us have a great bank of excuses ready to draw on, you know the ones, ‘I’m just too busy’, ‘I can’t get childcare’, ‘it wouldn’t work for me because…’, and a whole load of I’d love to but ….’ excuses.

All of these are great excuses not to expose yourself, but lets be honest what would really happen if you took a bit of a risk each day?

For example: you meet someone you’ve always admired and would love to work with and he says “give me a ring”. Great you think, then you spend days putting off making the call while you perfect what you want to say, or wait for the right moment, etc etc. A week goes by and you’ve not called yet. Then you start to talk yourself out of the call, it’s too late now, they won’t remember me and guess what you never make it. But you do re visit the scenario every now and then just to remind yourself that it wouldn’t have worked for you.

What if you’d just been brave and picked up the phone the next day and said hello and gone from there? You may or may not have got the outcome you wanted, but you’d stand a much better chance of getting it. The likelihood is you’d also save yourself a whole load of emotional energy worrying about it too.

For me doing one brave thing a day quite simply means getting on with the stuff that holds me back in my business and my life. The things I have to stretch myself to do, where I don’t feel quite comfortable or confident. Things like recently running my first live webinar, I was terrified the technology would let me down. It reminded me of a time about 10-12 years ago when I had to give a powerpoint presentation for the first time, same fear. Did I still do it? Yes of course, it wasn’t perfect but it was good enough and the next one was even better, mostly because I was concentrating on the webinar not the technology.

I’d not really thought of stuff like that as being brave, but it is and kind of heroic too. Sort of rescuing yourself from yourself, and don’t we all need and deserve to be saved from time to time. So my challenge for you is to look at what you do and perhaps more importantly what you don’t do that you might want to do, then decide where you might need to take action.

So what difference could you make to your life by doing one brave thing a day?

What happens, as we get older, feel we have a reputation to uphold, we need to prove and justify and we transmit what we believe will make us credible. Exit the real you ……

We may look and say the adolescents’ view would be a bit clichéd for someone older and maybe it is, but surely it’s better to share a bit of who we are than just what we do.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying young people don’t care what others think. Of course they do, and there was plenty of angst about whether they would achieve, whether they were good enough, whether people would approve just as you might expect. At the same time though there was a sense of optimism and expectation in the way they show up on social media.

You see, we all need confidantes, trusted friends, mentors and we all need to explore and move through challenges and anxieties. What we don’t need is to keep telling ourselves we have something to prove. No one needs to justify their existence to clients, to friends or family and most of all to ourselves.

If you can learn to value yourself, understand what your special value to others is and how you contribute to the world then the job is half done.

Try:

Identifying What You Value

• Write, draw, record (whatever medium you like best) all the things you value about yourself.
• Give yourself time and space – it’s not always an easy exercise if you’ve not used to finding the good stuff.
• Acknowledge any negative thoughts, recognize they have a purpose (may be it is to keep you safe, protected or unchallenged, you know at some level what their purpose is) and let them go. Draw your focus back to the things you value
• When you can think of no more ask yourself very specifically “what else do I value”
• Keep writing until you have satisfied yourself you have everything out

What Is Your Special Value To Others

• Write, draw, record (whatever medium you like best) all the things you believe others value in you
• Prioritise your list, what are your top 3?
• Now the scary bit – ask people! Ask your friends, your family and your work colleagues what they most value and what do you contribute in their relationship with you
• Find the themes in this information, in there will be the value you bring to others
• Identify how this compares to your top 3

Distill your answers from above and decide how you want to contribute to the world.

All that is left is finding the courage to stand up and shine. Your social media profiles may be a place to start, do they really reflect you and the value you bring, is it really what you want to share?

I’m off now to revisit my profiles ….

Do tell us what you think in the comments section below.