Tag Archives: being strong

Courage Quotes

 Courage lets You go in the right direction

 courage
King of the Forest

“If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t go anywhere.” –Unknown

Like everybody else in life, there have been times when I have been faced with circumstances that were not the most pleasant to deal with.  There are really only two choices as to how you decide to face these moments in life.  One is to act out of fear, that you may lose what you have worked for or be hurt irreparably by whatever misstep has come your way.  Or you can face the challenge of the situation head-on and with courage that you will not be conquered by the events of your life and you will not shrink from them.  You will come out on the other end a stronger, better person. Courage is defined as mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty

Quotes of Courage from the Cowardly Lion

I have always liked the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz, how he realizes that if he would just face his life with more courage he would be more happy and successful.  The best part is, that just like all of us, all of the courage that he ever needed was inside him all the time just waiting for him to have the confidence to use it. He just needs to get beyond the limiting belief that he is a coward and always will be.

The ability to summon up courage from inside yourself does not have to be done with a formal ritual, or a special process.  It has to be done by believing in yourself, and your value as a human being.  I know that is all well and good, but how do you really do that? Get by the catchphrase and summon up the courage that you need.

“Courage. What makes a King out of a slave? Courage.  
 What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage.     
What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist or the dusky dusk?   What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage.  
 What makes the Sphinx the 7th Wonder? Courage.  
What makes the dawn come up like THUNDER?! Courage.
 What makes the Hottentot so hot?   What puts the “ape” in ape-ricot?  Whatta they got that I ain’t got?   Dorothy & Friends: Courage!  
Cowardly Lion: You can say that again.

I Can And I Will-Quotes of Courage

courage will allow you to believeOne of the best frames of mind you can build to bring the courage out from inside you is to have the “I can and I will” mentality about life.

When you are faced with a difficult task, that you think you may struggle with, repeat this phrase to yourself, “I can and I will”.  At first, you may not quite believe it, as you try to fight through your own insecurities and fears.

Keep thinking it, “I can and I will”, soon as your past failures and personal limitations fall off to the side you will begin to feel the confidence of this statement, “I can and I will”, your own well of courage which is inside each of us will start to bubble to the surface.  At first like a few small bubbles but as you continue to think and believe, “I can and I will”, more and more will come to you.

Each challenge you face will be faced more and more easily with the courage you have inside you.  You will not always be successful, but you will start to realize that failure will not permanently define you, but your courage will.  You will start to reach higher for things you once never dreamed you had the ability to reach.  And if you fail? So what, “I can and I will” , what you are looking for will happen for you.

 Courage is better than fear

courage over fear,
F**k It You Can Do It

Why then is it so hard to reach inside and summon up the courage that is in each of us just waiting to be used?

Most often it is our own limiting beliefs that stop us from reaching for what we want.  Limiting beliefs are thoughts that have been said so much by ourselves or others that we have finally just stopped questioning them and accept them as true, regardless of what they do to us.

Examples, “I’m not smart enough”, “I don’t have the talent”, “I am too ugly”, “Good things only happen to other people”, “I can’t”,  there are many more.

As you can see if you allow yourself to be boxed into your life by believing statements that are limiting you, you will never be able to reach your potential.  And the bad part is that these limiting beliefs become, in ways, very comforting to us.  They explain why other people are happy and we are not.

If you are hearing that little voice inside your head that is repeating any of these types of limiting beliefs, there is one thing you can do today that will start to erode them away.  Just say, “To heck with that, I’m awesome.”  This phrase carries with it the appropriate emotional emphasis to get you through whatever limits you have placed on yourself and/or your abilities.  Try it when your limiting thoughts come up, “I’m too fat.”  Reply with, “To heck with that, I’m awesome, I am not defined by my weight.”

You will find that once you start to overcome these limiting beliefs, there isn’t really a lot of things that can stand in your way.   Another example is, “Success in business is for other people, not me.”To heck with that, I am as smart and deserving as anyone else in the world.  I can be successful, all I need to do is try.”  Try this with one of your own limiting beliefs and you will see that you have the courage to fight for yourself and to get what you deserve to be happy.  Because the bottom line is that we all deserve to be happy, even you! Our minds need to be reminded of this continually. If you don’t control your mind, someone else will.

I could rattle on all day, but the essence of this article can be boiled down into one sentence that I hope you will read and remember:

We all have courage inside us that will allow us to achieve all of the great things we want to achieve if we will just use it.

That is it, put aside the fear, and limiting beliefs that have held you down for years and summon up the courage that we all have to strive for a dream, or to reach for the goal.  You may or may not get there, but courage allows the journey, and the journey is what life is all about.

 

Quotes of Courage

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”  – Ambrose Redmoon

Courage is not living without fear.    Courage is being scared to death and doing the right thing anyway.     – Chae Richardson

Courage is looking fear right in the eye and saying, “Get the hell out of my way, I’ve got things to do.”   -Author unknown

 

Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.—Thoreau

It is easier to find a score of men wise enough to discover the truth than to find one intrepid enough, in the face of opposition, to stand up for it. –A.A. Hodge

It is curious—curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.– Mark Twain

Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences. —Susan B. Anthony

Following the path of least resistance is what makes rivers and men crooked.–Unknown

Silence is evil’s closest ally. –Gary Amirault

Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.—Mark Twain

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.—Gandhi

New paradigms put everyone practicing the old paradigm at risk. The higher one’s position, the greater the risk. The better you are at your paradigm, the more you have invested in it, the more you have to lose by changing paradigms. –Joel Arthur Barker

True courage is not the absence of fear—but the willingness to proceed in spite of it.–Unknown

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt. –William Shakespeare

A certain amount of opposition is great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with the wind. – John Neal

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.– E. F. Schumacher

In the end, they wanted security more than they wanted freedom. –Edward Gibbon (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire)

Everyday courage has few witnesses. But yours is no less noble because no drum beats for you and no crowds shout your name. –Robert Louis Stevenson

One man with courage makes a majority.– Andrew Jackson

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. – Plato

To know how to say what other people only think, is what makes men poets and sages; and to dare to say what others only dare to think, makes men martyrs or reformers. –Elizabeth Rundle

Fear comes from the Adamic nature—faith comes from the Christ nature– Jacquelyn K. Heasley

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.–Robert Frost

People tend to want to follow the beaten path. The difficulty is that the beaten path doesn’t seem to be leading anywhere.–Charles M. Mathias

If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t go anywhere. –Unknown

But the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them,glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it. –Thucydides

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is -try to please everybody.–Herbert Bayard Swope

Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.–James Bryant Conant –

The greatest mistake is life is to be continually fearing that you will make one. –Elbert Hubbard

All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions.–Adlai E. Stevenson

Evil triumphs when good men do nothing. –Edmund Burke

I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom. –Bob Dylan

Except a person be part coward, it is not a compliment to say he is brave. –Mark Twain

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. — Henry David Thoreau

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. –Martin Luther King Jr

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. –Anais Nin

 

 

Imperfection

Imperfection– a fault, blemish, or undesirable feature.

imperfectionAll of us have to face facts at some point. We are not perfect.  Our lives are infected by personal shortcomings and weaknesses of all sorts, which cause us to make imperfect choices all the time.  These imperfections may be physical, spiritual, emotional, financial, or fall under any area of our experience and/or lives.  Despite these shortcomings, the secret to enjoying life is to explore and embrace each one of them fully. Personal growth can only come from understanding.  This understanding results from looking honestly at the things we don’t like, knowing why they happen and taking actions to improve them.  Increase your awareness of your perceived imperfections by looking at your thoughts, the resulting emotions, words, and actions you experience noticing your imperfections. You will find these imperfections can be a guide to personal growth and understanding of one’s outlook.

Don’t Hide from Imperfections.

For myself, I see weakness every day. Each day I am confronted with situations that either reveal or highlight some glitches in my personal makeup.  There are clear choices.

No need to hide from your weakness, embrace it.
No need to hide from your weakness. Embrace it.

Available to me when I experience these challenges.

The first one is to try to hide them from the world.  You can ignore them and move on with life like nothing ever happened.  This can be good for a day or perhaps a week or maybe even a month or a year, but ignoring something doesn’t make it not exist.

These not-so-powerful images of ourselves do not exist to make us feel bad. They are there to provide you with a road map for improvement.  Don’t hide from or ignore your personal “weaknesses”; learn to recognize, embrace them and grow from them.  We spend so much energy hiding our perceived problems from others, and the real problem becomes the hiding of the problem and worries about it, more than the problem itself.  Embrace your uniqueness and understand it makes you who you are. Unique.  It is through understanding that things change.

See the Path to Improvement

It can be a painful thing to see your weakness on display. When I see my anger, impatience, and negative attitude crop up, it can be a daunting task to face.  Who wants to admit that they are not perfect in everything they Imperfectiondo in a day?  But it is only by recognizing where we are weak that we can see the path we need to follow to be strong.

So if I am negative about something, there is a reason it is happening, and usually, it is a personal, teachable moment.  Yesterday I got angry several times because of the actions of others.  Not bad actions, just being human and worrying about their own needs above everyone else’s needs.  I am a firm believer that anger is an emotional warning sign that shows our concern that our needs might not be met or that we are in physical danger.

It seems my anger reveals my own concerns about the ending of something and the inevitable moving on.  I am ready to move on in most cases, but there are quite a few people and work situations that I have become quite fond of, and both consciously and subconsciously, it hurts to see that coming to an end. But knowing this allows you to say goodbye or maintain relationships comfortably and enjoyably for all people.

I have a fear of these relationships.  I am rational enough to know that moving on is the best thing for me and all of the people I care about. In fact, the end has to happen for me to grow, but it still does not come without difficulty.  Without realizing this, I may let the opportunity to tell some of these people exactly how much they have meant to me during this experience in my life. I could not have enjoyed it without them, and in fact, they are all part of the combined reason it was such a memorable experience.

Grow From Understanding Yourself

So there is really no other choice in life but to embrace the weakness that shows up in your day-to-day existence.  It may be initially difficult or uncomfortable to admit, but once you do, there is a wealth of information imperfectionthat can help to guide you on your path and lead you toward your dreams.

Dissecting your shortcomings allows you to view honestly where your work needs to be spent to live a higher quality of life.  This higher quality is going to allow you a better chance to reach your full potential.  All people have a tremendous potential to be great, but life’s pain and false beliefs often cover it up. Your weakness can provide you with the key to unlocking this great potential inside you. It simply needs to be dealt with.

It is also a fact that many times it is our imperfections that make us unique and interesting.  In some cases, your weakness will push you to overcome it, either to prove your worth to others or yourself, and these motivating factors are a part of understanding why we have weaknesses in the first place.

Change is Constant and Inevitable

Recognizing a weakness is a blessing because it allows you the opportunity to make changes and improve yourself in almost any way.  We know this will happen one way or another because no matter what you do, things are going to change.  Our imperfections are not a permanent handicap on enjoying and being happy in life, and they are simply a signpost of what needs work in our lives to make our existence a greater experience.

We are all imperfect beings in an imperfect world, trying to enjoy the ride of life.  You have the potential to be great, and embracing and working on your weaknesses will allow you to find success a whole lot quicker and to enjoy the experience of life along the way.  Often it is our “imperfections” that allow us to become our strongest selves.

It all begins with a greater awareness of the thoughts we have about our imperfections. Please don’t make it an indictment on you personally. Make it an opportunity to learn and become better, and the growth that results will allow a greater level of consciousness today.

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring. Marilyn Monroe

“The fact of storytelling hints at fundamental human unease hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection, there is no story to tell.”- Ben Okri

“There would be no need for love if perfection were possible. Love arises from our imperfection, from our being different and always in need of the forgiveness, encouragement and that missing half of ourselves that we are searching for, as the Greek myth tells us, to complete ourselves.”-Eugene Kennedy