Being brave
Today marks the end of the 30-Day Bravery Challenge and I couldn’t be prouder of myself for having participated in it.
It was an incredible experience, and is definitely one of the better things I’ve done for myself in recent months.
Being a part of Greg Faxon’s effort to create a movement, to inspire a group of people to get into a bravery habit, was extremely powerful.
While this was the first time I’ve participated in a group / experience like this, I could tell right away that there were a number of elements that Greg incorporated into this challenge that really made it work.
It made me think that in order to create a movement you need three things:
- Community: Greg Faxon, the creator of the challenge, created a community on Facebook so that all participants could interact and engage with each other. This community held each other up and kept each other accountable. The community, which started as a group of strangers, pushed me to overcome my fears and applauded my successes. Knowing that I had the support and encouragement of this group, knowing that I had them to report back to on my efforts, made me more motivated than ever to keep moving forward with the daily challenges. I think that creating a community is critical to keeping people engaged and motivated.
- Consistency: Another aspect that made this challenge successful was the consistency. Each participant knew that they’d receive an email each morning with that day’s challenge; each participant knew they’d get an email asking them to push themselves in some way. The daily emails became something that I looked forward to; each morning I would wait patiently to see Greg’s name pop up, eager to see what I would be challenged with that day. Letting people know what, and when, to expect your outreach helps create buy-in and anticipation.
- Collaboration: The last thing that made this experience so powerful was the degree of collaboration and interaction among the group. As the creator of the challenge and the group, Greg never forced us to engage, he merely created a space for the participants to interact with each other if they so desired; we jumped at the opportunity. I made immediate connections with dozens of people just by sharing feelings and experiences. I learned more about myself, my strengths and weaknesses, by hearing the stories of others. It was exhilarating to be a part of a movement of people filled with a desire to push and challenge themselves.
Throughout the 30 days of the challenge, I expressed deep feelings to friends and family, got a 10% discount on my afternoon coffee, received feedback on my work, got up in headstand in yoga, had lunch with a mentor and found new ways to engage with my community. I also met a number of remarkable people who I won’t soon forget.
The most important thing that I got out of the 30-Day Bravery Challenge was a new-found confidence and excitement to push myself further than I ever have before in my life.
So, today I challenge you to ask yourself: what could I do to push myself today? How can I start to be brave?