Do you think ‘courage’ is one of your strengths?

Courage shows itself in so many different ways.

 

During a coaching session with one client  (I’ll call her Nadine) we were looking at her strengths.  Nadine did not believe she had courage.  When answering my question about what courage looked like for her, she said something like “Well, I see it linked to physical courage, like parachuting or having a walking holiday in the jungle. I don’t think anything I do needs courage.  I don’t feel outside my comfort zone.”

 

You may be wondering what she does do!  I certainly would be curious if I were you.  Well, Nadine has acted as compere for a commercially sensitive event at which over 400 people attended – and she had never acted as compere before!  She also took over the lead of a business critical project that had been failing and turned it around (having little experience of this particular role).  I know other people would consider both those situations as requiring courage.  She just saw them as very interesting, stretching and fun!

 

It just shows how important it is to check understanding and to appreciate the role our thinking has when it comes to our perspective of what we and others do.

 

So where do you stand in relation to courage being one of your strengths?  Is there a link between courage and being outside your comfort zone?  I’d be interested to find out what your ideas are about courage.