Courage is choosing to face challenging situations despite the fear or insecurity they may cause us. So being brave doesn't mean being fearless but stepping forward and overcoming our challenges, instead of running away from them.
I have always liked to see myself as someone bold and courageous in the face of challenging situations, although I clarify that this has never included extreme or unnecessary risks that endanger my life. Depending on how challenging the situation I had to take on, just thinking about what I was going to experience made me feel a horrible emptiness in my stomach. However, when I stepped forward and faced it, reality turned out to be less difficult than I had imagined, regardless of whether the outcome was satisfactory or not. Understanding that my mind magnified the impact of an unknown or negative experience could have helped me gain more confidence, continue to dare, and move forward to this day.
Recently, I discovered that there are very interesting scientific studies that show that when we are faced with challenging situations or events, our mind plays against us, making very negative predictions that exceed reality.
In 2012, University of California psychologist Linda Levine and her colleagues found that getting a low grade doesn't impact our well-being as much as we would have predicted. People have the ability to adapt to unsatisfactory events.
Additionally, in a 2002 study, psychologist Elizabeth Dunn of the University of British Columbia found that people tend to make worse predictions about negative events and overestimate the effect they will have on us.
Paul Eastwick, a psychologist at the University of California, revealed in 2008 that when we end a relationship with someone important, we always predict that we will feel much worse than what we end up experiencing.
In another study, by the professor of psychology at the University of London, Peter Ayton adds an interesting fact: if something negative happens to you several times, you are still wrong in the prediction. In other words, having experience doesn't necessarily help you improve your future prediction.
The question that may arise is why do we make these negative predictions that exceed reality? We find the answer in psychologist Dan Gilbert, from Harvard University, who explains two reasons:
Focalism: when we predict how we will feel if something bad happens, we think only of that specific negative event and not of all the circumstances that will also be part of that experience, ensuring that it does not have the terrible impact that we imagine.
We underestimate our psychological immune system, which we have already discussed in previous blogs, forgetting the ability we have to adapt and overcome the difficult circumstances and challenges that life presents us with.
Now that we know that our mind is capable of making predictions that go beyond reality, and that makes us believe that the impact of a negative event, on us and on our lives, will be much greater than what we will actually experience; I propose that we remember that we are much stronger and more resilient than we think. Let us dare to recognize the unlimited power that is within us and take that step forward, towards the achievement of our goals, regardless of the result we obtain: if things go well, we celebrate, and if not, we learn. When you choose to approach life in this way, failure does not exist, because everything that happens becomes an opportunity to grow.
Why wait any longer? Decide today to be brave to create a reality of health, harmony, success, love, and abundance in balance.
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