Daring greatly.

I sat down and watched Brene Brown’s “The Call to Courage” on Netflix last night, and it rocked me to my core.

She’s absolutely brilliant, and captivating, and oh-so-right. If you haven’t watched it yet, go now. Drop your plans, who wouldn’t rather stay in anyway!?

She speaks effortlessly about vulnerability and how we have been so programmed to cover up our vulnerability and mask it with strength; when in fact to be strong is to be vulnerable. To be brave enough to share yourself fully and without reservation.

Since embarking on my journey as a nutrition coach let me tell you that I have been scared. I have suffered large amounts of imposter syndrome and self-doubt. I’ve talked myself out of things. I’ve put things off because I was afraid to take the leap, or worse, just worried about what other people would think.

We all do this, right. We have been raised this way. Don’t show your weakness, be tough, be strong.

It’s not getting us anywhere. We owe it to ourselves to stop it. We need to start showing up as our authentic self and having the courage to admit when we haven’t done something so well and the drive to try again anyway.

Brene calls it standing in the arena, getting slapped with mud in the face, getting kicked down, but being strong enough to do it because it means that you’re trying. That you’re willing to be vulnerable.

Nothing great comes without the courage to try, the risk of vulnerability.

She opens her talk with a story about how she came to discuss daring greatly, having stumbled across this quote by Theodore Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

So get out there. Have the courage. Take the risk. Because you’re great. And you owe it to yourself to share that with the world.

-A