Courageous Decisions

“The foundation of courage is vulnerability – the ability to navigate uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure”. Brene Brown

One of my favourite areas to work is with the quality of the thinking and decision making process. Having great questions to ponder serves to enrich the process.

There is often a threshold when one is forced into making a decision, which one has, to date, been avoiding for fear of the unknown and/or the outcome. This fear – can restrain us from making what we know, deep down, is the ‘right’ decision. We make excuses based on many factors, including, loyalty, uncertainty, misinformation or lack of information, trusting others, or not speaking out.

Ultimately, there comes a time when a line in the sand is drawn and one has to do something differently. Take ownership for the next steps and even the past ones already taken.

This has been the case with the ‘fallout’ from surgery I had 3 months ago.

Did I not ask the right questions in the beginning?
Did my fearful reaction to the diagnosis – basal cell carcinoma, drive me to rush into a decision, with insufficient formation, or inquiry?
The result? A less than satisfactory outcome.

With the wise lens of hindsight, I can recognise that even though there were ‘alarm’ signals at the outset, I chose to ignore them – even the interim measures after the first procedure. As a result, I am now choosing to have ‘corrective’ plastic surgery. A courageous decision, given I have never been in hospital.

So what does this have to do with courageous decisions?

According to Brene Brown, “the foundation of courage is vulnerability – the ability to navigate uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure”.
It takes courage to open up to joy, which, she says, is the most vulnerable emotion we feel. We downplay it (joy) or push it aside so we won’t be disappointed. We simply cannot handle the vulnerability that comes from joy. Could the same rule apply with success? We would rather ignore the feelings of vulnerability of ‘anticipated’ pain than acknowledge it, keep it to ourselves.

A great question she asks is: “Can you think of one moment of courage that didn’t require risk, uncertainty, and emotional exposure?” (page145, “Braving the Wilderness”).

No vulnerability, no courage! We have to show up and put ourselves out there.

This is why I use the phrase “What if you couldn’t fail?” for The Tall Journey program.

This weekend, Ash Barty, a 23yr old, Australian tennis player of Indigenous heritage, gave a wonderful example to inspire. She won the Roland Garros Grand Slam. Her story of success is nothing short of remarkable – made more so because she made the courageous decision to walk away from the sport she so dearly loved, and had played since she was 4 years old.

After winning junior Wimbledon in 2011, Barty struggled to deal with the expectation and pressure placed upon her young shoulders. Sensationally, she walked away from the sport, disillusioned and desperate for a break. Barty needed some time to ‘rethink’, to ‘reassess’ and ‘re-evaluate’.

She took a 2-year sabbatical and during this time rather than play a self-oriented sport, she played Twenty-twenty cricket (Big Bash as it is called) for Brisbane Heat. Barty acknowledges that this experience of being “away” and being part of a team helped her to ‘reset’. Her team-mates remain her friends and greatest supporters, It enabled her to re-assess how she wanted to play tennis – a sport she loved, on ‘her terms’ moving forward.

Brene Brown says “seeking out moments of collective joy and showing up for moments of collective pain, requires us to be brave”.

Barty did continue to hit tennis balls with her junior coach Jim Joyce during her sabbatical at West Brisbane Tennis Club. She admitted she always knew she would return. Her junior coach remains a treasured mentor who remembers his reasoning for taking her on as a four-year old. “Her focus and concentration was just incredible. The way she could just pick things up and focus on what you were telling her, to read the moment.”

In the semi-final, Barty lost her way momentarily and we witnessed her courage to take risks, that mental fortitude to find a way through. In the final, the ultimate, that ‘vulnerable’ moment, and her concentration and follow through were exceptional.

Ash Barty demonstrated courageous decision. In her words: “I think I needed time to grow as a person, to mature and I left all of my options open.”

This is a perfect example of a “Reset” –you may recall that I spoke of this in my January blog. Sometimes we do need to step back, be vulnerable and engage with the pain to be able to “enjoy the joy”.

A client of mine was recently at a crossroads in their life. Do I continue to stay doing something I know, but is not giving me the level of joy I know is possible, or do I take that step into the unknown and move to another field of work, one that gives me more opportunity to embrace working at the edge – exploring innovative ideas. Focusing on the word “exploring’ helped her to realise she had become stale, so too her energy. Her journey continues, but with greater courage to take the risk of focusing on what she enjoyed.

Courageous decisions take right thinking, emotional maturity, physical alignment, spiritual connection and mental resilience.

Assess the situation, make a decision, follow through, reset if need be and trust.

• How are you assessing your situation?

• Where are you allowing yourself to be vulnerable?

• How are you Standing Tall and owning what is important for you?

• How can I help you?