Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage

Monday musings

Here’s your mantra for the week! This week’s card is from my The Sovereign Success Oracle deck. You can get it here or here.

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‘I haven’t seen my comfort zone since 2017.’

I’ve uttered that phrase a lot over the past years. Whenever the topic came up, the words would jump off my tongue immediately. I always said it jokingly, but I was absolutely serious. And sort of unhappy about it, too.

I wanted growth, and our growth zones exist only beyond our comfort zones. There’s no way around it: there’s very little growth within our zones of comfort.

But there’s a reason why it’s so hard to venture outside of our comfort zones: it’s really scary. And to do really scary things, we need courage.

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2017 was my catalyst for change. Or, rather, it set off my latest cycle of change. It was the start of the adventure I am living now, and it forced me to do a lot of terrifying things. Things that, at the time, I never thought I’d have the courage for.

As I was going through what 2017 had set in motion, people kept telling me how much they admired my courage. Frankly, they were a little envious of the brave changes I was making in my life.

Initially, I rejected both ‘courageous’ and ‘brave’ as labels, reminding the people I spoke to that I didn’t know anyone who was more scared of everything than I was. I have rather severe social and anticipatory anxiety, so whatever was propelling me forward, it couldn’t be courage nor bravery.

But then I came across this quote by Anaïs Nin: ‘Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.’

I took this quote to mean that any form of expansion needs courage, which meant that what I was doing, all the changes I was making in all aspects of my life so I could grow, was me being courageous, no matter how terrified I felt day in, day out. It reminded me that it’s not a lack of fear that makes you brave, it’s doing it no matter how terrified you are.

Courage, as I’ve come to understand it, is neither defined by how far you leave your comfort zone behind. Just ask yourself what’s the first step you can take. The teeniest tiniest, if necessary. Once that step feels more comfortable to you, you ask yourself the same question and take the next step. Even if you only step one toe beyond those safe boundaries, and then another, you’re still practising courage.  

And that’s what courage is, a practice. The more you practise stepping out of your comfort zone, whether with big leaps or baby steps – the more comfortable not being in your comfort zone becomes. Not only because your comfort zone will expand along with you, but also because you will, eventually, become comfortable with feeling uncomfortable.  

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By now, I can’t remember the last time I uttered ‘I haven’t seen my comfort zone since 2017.’ What I do know is that the only reason I kept repeating it at the time is because I still desperately wanted to go back to it. I knew it would stifle my growth – and slowly kill my heart and soul – but I had yet to experience, to see for myself, just how fruitful it is to consistently step outside of your comfort zone.

And it’s hard to commit to a path without any sort of indication that it’ll deliver you the promised results.

Now I know – what expansion feels like, what being true to myself feels like, what doing new things feels like – I feel no need to return to that place. It might catch up with me one day, because my comfort zone is expanding too (just not as fast as I am!), but I’m pretty certain I’ll just leap right back out of it and head for the next thing that’ll make me grow.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way, not any more.

If this is an area you’re struggling with or you’re ready to check in with your own creative courage, check out the exercise below.

Happy creating this week, and happy being brave <3

Mariëlle

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How courageous have you been in your creative life lately?

For today’s musings, I’ve adapted an exercise from my 99 Writing Prompts and Journaling Exercises for Writers to Cultivate Courage and Kick Imposter Syndrome to the Curb to help you answer that question and figure out where or how you could practise a little more courage.

In the book, I combined the exercise with the following quote by Maya Angelou: ‘I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity, is daring to dare.’

Here’s the exercise:

Every creative endeavour takes courage. No matter how beautifully you write, paint, compose, draw, sing, act or how much, if you lack the courage to be vulnerable and share your creations with the world, it was all for naught. Unless the sole reason you express yourself creatively is to entertain yourself, of course.

Try to visualise courage as a measuring cup. Now, be honest with yourself: When it comes to creative courage, how well do you score? How full or empty is your cup?

No matter the answer, set your timer to fifteen minutes and try to come up with at least five areas and/or five ways in which you could be more courageous.

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