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Fearlessness vs Courage

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Blog 22 Jul 2024

Fearlessness vs Courage

Are you fearless? Or are you courageous?

Sounds like a funny question, doesn’t it? They both mean the same, don’t they?

Are they? Is being courageous the same as being fearless? It’s a question that is often seen as meaning the same. The answer though is a very definitive no.

Here’s a slightly more correct view.

Both qualities support growth and adventure and help stand up in the world with the confidence and passion.   But, mixing up the two would be incorrect. They’re similar, but different. The confusion between the two happens when people reduce their meanings down to: don’t let fear stop you. Whether fear is dormant or active, though, makes all the difference between these two concepts.

Being fearless literally translates to being without fear. Because fear is a natural, biological response, it’s impossible to cancel the emotion permanently. It is possible, however, to put fear to sleep.

The best way to achieve fearlessness is to successfully do something over and over again. Riding a bike down a dangerous road with the same conditions every morning helps a person anticipate every curve, decline and bump. The biker becomes familiar with the road … and fear becomes uninterested in the activity. Repetition builds competence and confidence, two internal resources that can rock fear into complacency, then put it to bed.

But, if an unexpected element is added to the action – if the weather becomes hazardous or angry dogs chase the biker – fear rouses in a panic, shutting down the previous fearless state.

There’s another road to becoming fearless, but it’s far more dangerous to travel

Fear can be tricked into a slumber when a person underestimates a risk and overestimates their own abilities. This translates acting rashly, or without careful consideration of potential consequences. Carelessly riding a bike down an unfamiliar road with hidden dips and abrupt turns can create problems for the inexperienced biker. In this case, fear is unconscious for the action when it should, in fact be awake and well aware.

Being courageous means choosing to face fear or a threat for a worthy purpose. The presence of fear, not the absence of it, is part of the courage equation. Fear is awake, alert and active, which means any attempt to lull fear to sleep is pointless. The goal, then, is to put fear in its place and make it behave.

Being fearless and being courageous are qualities that prevent fear from derailing progress. What makes the concepts different, though, is whether fear is present for the action. Fearlessness makes fear disappear while courage makes fear sit in a corner and behave.

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