The Courage Complex — Why Frightening Yourself Is Being Brave
By: Brendan Ellis
Tags: Success, Courage, Opportunity, Personal Development, Comfort Zone

Courage isn’t a feeling; it’s a behaviour. Just ask Aslan.

I don’t think anything monumental was ever achieved from within the bounds of a comfort zone.

That, in itself, is quite a scary thought.

If I asked you to tell me what scares you, what would you say?

Rather than put you on the spot, I’ll go first…

The truth is, what really scares me is: ‘being stuck in a chair when I’m old’

You see, I’m a very active person who loves playing sports and taking on endurance challenges. Add to that a passion about health and fitness and the thought of being stuck in one place forever absolutely terrifies me.

Photo: Brendan Ellis

But the chances are it will happen.

The body will begin to fail, likely become frail and as a result, there is a very real danger I could become chair bound.

I have no medical condition (which I am currently aware of) that leads me to this conclusion but sitting here now (note the irony) thinking about it makes me shiver.

What can I do about it?

Well, they say that movement is “oil for the body” so I’m just trying to do as much of that as possible. Stretch here, some yoga moves there, lift weights regularly; getting a daily 10k+ steps in.

All with the hope of putting off that dreaded chair.

With pondering this fear, also came a revelation…

“The older you become, the more scared you get. This is an unavoidable truth.”

But why is this?

As defined by the Oxford Dictionary the comfort zone is described as “a situation where one feels safe or at ease.”

This shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anyone as I’m sure we can all identify with the comfort zone.

However, upon further inspection I found an alternative definition which piqued my interest a little more:

”A settled method of working that requires little effort and yields only barely acceptable results.”

What this is really saying is ‘the less we put in, the less we get out’. That makes sense as I’m pretty sure my parents, my teachers at school & my mentors all told me the opposite.

Is the underlying message, if we don’t put the work in, we’ll forever stay in our own comfort zone?!

If that is the case, how did we end up in a comfort zone in the first place??

The way I see it, we are all born into a comfort zone.

That place where taking the easy option always exists:

As a child not trying to walk means staying in your comfort zone

As a teenager, not trying to ride a bike means staying in your comfort zone.

As an adult, not doing anything to jeopardise your job means staying in your comfort zone.

The emergent theme from is the comfort zone means the path of least resistance or more accurately the ‘easy way out’.

That doesn’t mean we can’t achieve great things, far from it. (Hopefully) we all learn to walk, ride a bike and secure a job, but the ‘easy way out’ always remains.

As a result, the comfort zone never disappears, we just get better at dealing with it.

The ebbs and flows of life mean the comfort zone takes different forms, moulding to situations but remaining ever present.

With this is in mind, I have called this situation ‘The Courage Complex’ — the interaction between the comfort zone, opportunities and our courage.

Let me explain…

Image 2 circles, the inner most one is our Comfort Zone; the area where we feel most comfortable, where taking the easy option exists most readily.

The outer circle is the Opportunity District; the area in which opportunities are plentiful but come with associated risks and rewards.

In between the two is the Boundary of Doubt; the area which fills us with uncertainty, fear and doubt.

This boundary sits on the edge of the comfort zone and between the opportunity district. It should be noted this area is full of “what ifs?”, could I have’s? Should I have’s?

Author: Brendan Ellis

With this in mind, the most pertinent question is:

“how do we break through the boundary of doubt into the opportunity district?”

This is where Courage comes into play.

I like to think of Courage as a muscle.

Courage is something we all have. We are born with it. Whether we use it or not is entirely in our own gift.

Why is it like a muscle?

To make a muscle grow, we need to work on it.

Without getting all biomechanical, the muscle fibres are ripped apart and grow back stronger through the act of muscle building.

Bodybuilders are the prime example of this — working each and every day to strengthen and grow a particular muscle in a particular part of the body.

In the same way the brain is a muscle and needs to be worked, so too does courage.

Courage can be broken down into elements (think leadership, integrity, self-confidence, compassion, strength etc) and each of these needs strengthening. More often than not through hard work, failure and learning from these experiences to grow as a person.

Another important similarity between courage and muscle building is that stasis, or staying the same i.e. equilibrium, does not exist.

From a muscle perspective, the body is either in an anabolic state (muscle growing — hypertrophic) or catabolic state (muscle shrinking — atrophy); staying constant is not possible.

I believe courage is the same.

If we don’t actively work on being more courageous, I believe the courage muscle gets smaller. The less we use it, the weaker it becomes.

Thankfully, the opposite is also true.

The more we use it, the stronger it becomes. Or more accurately, the more courageous we become.

Why is this relevant?

Well, if we are born into the comfort zone, how do we break free? How do we challenge ourselves? How do we find out opportunities that scare us?

This is where the courage muscle comes in.

The courage muscles best friend is the ‘Courage Spear’.

The courage spear is our ticket to opportunity.

As with all spears, the front end of the tip is very sharp, and that is good for us; because we need to:

pierce the outer edge of the comfort zone,

break through the boundary of doubt, and

reach the opportunity district.

Having a spear is, unfortunately, just not enough. We need to be strong enough to throw the spear at the boundary of doubt and break through.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

The problem is, the boundary of doubt is very specific to each of us.

What makes me fearful and doubtful is unlikely to be the same for you. Therefore, the effort I need to break through will be different to the strength you need.

In addition, there are weaker parts of the Boundary of Doubt which are more susceptible to piercing than others — these are the previous attempts / life experiences we have encountered.

There are areas where the Boundary of Doubt is also very very thick.

This is the result of constant doubting ourselves, staying in the comfort zone and the general negative talk we give ourselves. It is (generally) all our own doing.

What is important to note, is that we can ALL breakthrough.

It is likely to be hard work and probably painful in some way shape or form, but it IS possible.

The use of coaches, personal development techniques, and support networks all give us the foot up we need to help bust through.

In essence though, the comfort zone inherently stays the same size.

It will ebb and flow depending on your life experiences but predominantly stays the same. By adding skills to your repertoire, building your courage muscle and knowing where to throw your courage spear, you can give yourself the best possible chance of reaching opportunities!

What happens when you break through?

Imagine for a second, you have a balloon full of air. When the balloon is originally blown up, air is pushed into the balloon which causes it to inflate. This is all as expected. But now imagine the balloon is placed under water.

The buoyancy of the air will conflict against the pressure of the water. That in itself is not a problem. But what happens we the balloon perimeter is breached??

The answer is air is expelled and water rushes in.

The result?

The balloon will change shape and context. In the first instance the balloon will reduce in size as the air rushes out. However (and depending on the density of the liquids) water could rush into the fill the vacant space.

In this instance, the balloon could in fact grow in size as the water replaces the air and forces the balloon to hold a greater volume.

I fully appreciate there are a number of factors which need to occur for this to play out as indicated but for the purposes of the analogy, I hope it makes sense.

There are 2 things to note here:

Firstly, the amount of water that can come in is directly proportional to the size of the opportunity you are pursuing. Therefore, the greater the opportunity, the larger the courage muscle needed, the greater the water to be added to your comfort zone.

Secondly, the comfort zone will grow. This is due to the effort and courage you exuded to reach the opportunity district being incorporated into your own comfort zone. What used to be scary and cause doubt, is no-longer the case. It is no-longer an ‘unknown’.

What happens after you reach the Opportunity District?

Only you will know that!

As mentioned, the opportunities we face are specific to each of us. In the same way, every single one of us is unique, the Opportunity District will be unique to you.

There may be similarities in the Opportunity District between like-minded people, friends or colleagues, but there will never be 2 of the same.

What will be true though, is that what used to cause you doubt will no-longer be as daunting as it used to be. This now becomes your baseline.

Having said that, not every attempt will cause you to breakthrough to the Opportunity District. That is not how life works, even the most “fortunate” will have to deal with adversity in some way shape or form.

Should you attempt to the throw the Courage Spear and it not break through the Boundary of Doubt, I believe the following will happen:

You revert back to your Comfort Zone — You tried and failed You realise it was not as bad as you thought — You tried, failed and learned

When you do make this through, there is a 3rd step which looks like this:

3. Made it through — Tried, learned & succeeded

This is all part of the tapestry of life.

As my Father told me, “nothing worth having in life is easy, otherwise everyone would have it.”

This phrase sums the scenario up perfectly as it will take you time and effort. And quite possibly lead to failure on the first attempt. But if you concentrate on building your courage muscle, I believe it will happen.

What happens to the Courage Complex as we get older?

It’s quite brutal but the answer is we are less likely to try and burst through.

Why?

Because no matter how hard we try, doubts will exist. As mentioned, the longer we leave it between “tries” or building the courage muscle, the more likely doubt is to creep in i.e. the weaker the courage muscle becomes…

Can I (still) do it? Will I be ok? What if it goes wrong?

We all get used to life being a particular way; whether it be a certain way of living, a certain wage, a certain amount of risk aversion. These actions have a double effect; not only weakening our courage muscle, but at the same time thickening the Boundary of Doubt.

This means breaking through gets harder.

And with it, greater courage to break through. In turn, more building the muscle to achieve the desired result.

You can see it in everyday life…

Someone says “I’d love to leave my job but I can’t do that because of the mortgage…” is the Boundary of Doubt double teaming with a weakened Courage muscle.

The short answer is of course you can, but it will take effort and courage.

Then it depends if you want it badly enough… to weight up the risk and rewards, to build your courage muscle to be strong enough to throw your Courage Spear to the Opportunity District.

In essence, the older we get the more doubt we need to overcome, the greater the courage we need to achieve the same results as when we were younger.

This is due to the perception of risk / reward for opportunities changing. More often than not, in a negative way. We are less inclined to try as there is more to lose. But as I’ve described, it doesn’t have to be that way.

That’s why we can plot our courage levels on the Courage Curve.

Over time, we perceive ourselves to have “less” courage.

Author: Brendan Ellis

In reality, we all have the same amount of courage, but the ability and willingness to use it becomes less and less. Thereby needing more to achieve a previously similar result.

For example, if you want to start a business when younger, it is easier and you (perceptually) had less to lose.

However, when you get older there are “additional” considerations such as mortgages, families to feed etc which all cause doubt and uncertainty. These doubts impact on the desire and thereby courage, to achieve the same outcome… starting a business

That’s why learning, developing new skills and gaining knowledge help prolong the courage curve decline. The more we learn, the more we know, the greater impact we can have on the law of diminishing returns i.e. putting it off.

Unfortunately, it is not a linear relationship.

In much the same way, the route to entrepreneurial success in reality looks different to the envisioned way. So does the courage curve.

The morale of the Courage Complex is that the power is always in our hands.

We are responsible for our own destiny.

Whether it be staying in the safety of our comfort zone or building our Courage muscle and breaking through the Boundary of Doubt, we are in control.

We can influence the angle of our own courage curve, we can put off the decline but we can’t fight gravity.

What we can do, is keep learning, keep working our muscles and stay on our own course to happiness.

Is the comfort zone where dreams and ambitions go to die? Yes.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

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