The Perennial Regret: “I’ve been too Timid”
Winston Churchill has an amazing line: “Always More Audacity” (and he certainly lived it!)
Striving for more audacity is one frame.
Another frame would be to avoid the perennial regret: being too timid.
We have far more loss from being timid than failing to execute.
Categorize all your errors into either failures of execution or failures of courage —
Which do you have more of?
Which represents a bigger opportunity for improvement?
I bet you’ve lost more due to failures of courage — and I bet it’s not even close.
As the saying goes “Hell is meeting the best possible version of yourself.” Now, ‘best’ is always open to your own interpretation. So, interpret however you like.
But allow yourself to really feel the infinite potential you have — and be honest about all of the big and small ways you’re holding back.
Imagine you’re a baseball player. If you never swing your hardest, or if you always check-swing… the world assumes you can’t swing or won’t hit. If you keep swinging your hardest, when you connect you will connect hard. Once people see you connect hard, you will be seen as a hitter and treated as a hitter. Once you are a hitter — people will be eager to be on your team, work beside you.
What does it cost to swing hard at every good pitch? What is the cost of increasing your courage?
Only the willingness to try your hardest.
Cheap and simple, but not easy.
What are some practical, tactical ways to be less timid? To reduce your failures of courage?
Observe and notice that the most successful people are courageous.
You probably already know many people in your life you might consider less talented or less able than others… but who succeed due to courage and action. The weak-minded reaction is to resent these people. Learn to admire them.
Reflect honestly on your feelings about your past self’s decisions.
Has your past self been sufficiently brave?
What about your present self? What do you wish had already been done? Why aren’t you doing it NOW? Be honest with yourself.
What will your future self wish your present self had done today, this week, this month, this year?
Reinforce your vision of your own courage.
You can change your beliefs about yourself through visualization, affirmation, meditation, and above all—ACTION.
Act courageously, observe yourself acting courageously, believe you are a courageous person, act courageous again. Repeat.
To fully achieve this, it can help to dissociate from your past self. Review those decisions as though made by someone else. You are NOT responsible for defending or rationalizing those decisions.
In the coming years, over and over again you will realize and re-realize “I have been too timid.”
Start fighting this battle today, right now.
Chant to yourself every day: Still more audacity.