I’m not one to set myself new year resolutions. Instead, I like to set goals – things I would like to achieve, try, and do throughout the year – not just to eat and drink less after Christmas, or exercise more in January. I’m talking long term goals for my own mental, spiritual, physical and emotional growth. And sure that sounds kind of like resolutions, but it’s not really…

I love the quote “what is measured improves*”. Setting goals with milestones along the way, working towards a deadline of achieving the greater goal, helps motivate me to keep pushing forward. With regular checking in, I am more likely to keep going. So rather than just saying “I will exercise more” and leaving it at that, a goal I might set would be to run Xkms by X date… and to do that I will start by walking X times a week, then progressing to X short runs, until I build up the endurance to run my goal. Putting in the specific numbers as a way of measuring encourages me as I progress (or holds me accountable if I don’t…).

With this entrepreneurial adventure that I am on it is pretty overwhelming to focus on the overall vision and end goal. There are that many steps I need to take before I can even get close to it! So when I started to focus on just a few of the steps and set goals around those individually it’s really helped me to move along faster than I thought was possible – and I’m grateful I’m not stuck looking up at the enormity of the dream (although every now and then it’s hard not to!).

Another thing I find helpful is telling people about my goals, especially a few close people that will cheer me on and check in to see how I’m going from time to time.

So, about bravery…

One goal I set myself this year (besides pursuing this entrepreneurial adventure) was to consciously and deliberately be more bold, brave and courageous in some areas, so that I could become more naturally confident in all areas. Of course, the idea was that this would benefit me personally and also in my business. So, to do this I gave myself a milestone each month: to do 2 brave things! So far it has been things as little as trying a new food that I wouldn’t normally eat, to as significant as resigning from a secure full-time role that I had held for more than six years…!

Of course, being brave doesn’t have to be as extreme as resigning from a job or jumping out of a plane to get your adrenaline going. Sometimes the building up of lots of little adrenaline starters is sufficient. I remind myself constantly that I’ve got to be able to walk before I can run… particularly in this instantaneous world where we expect so many things to happen ‘just like that’. And just like the age old saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”…

So, I’m going to keep eating new foods that I wouldn’t normally try, starting conversations I’d rather avoid, as well as doing lots of other seemingly insignificant things (insignificant to others but possibly nerve-wracking for me!) as well as the really big, brave things, to allow my courage and confidence to grow.

Who’s with me? What brave things have you done lately, or are you considering doing, that could be a step towards a more courageous you?

Oh, and if you need a little inspiration re courage, you all know how much I love lions – check out my recent lions post from Copenhagen!

*Peter Drucker