Why Being Bold Is a Prerequisite to a Great Life
A few thoughts on what it means to live boldly.
Life without risk is barely living. We all live for the joy of progress. We want to see our skills, relationships, and careers grow and improve. If we want to have any hope of achieving these goals, we must be willing to live boldly.
Have you ever decided to put yourself through pain, fear, or embarrassment to expand your capabilities? That was a bold decision. Have you ever chosen to do something with no clue if you could actually complete it? This is also a bold decision. Great lives are filled with similar decisions.
It’s easy to choose the comfortable, pre-set plans in our lives. We know what to expect and how to prepare ourselves. We don’t have to worry about instability or insecurity. Everything has been laid out so that we can do just above the bare minimum and still have all the basic amenities associated with a comfortable life.
If being safe and comfortable is your main concern, then this may be the perfect life for you. If, however, you want to live a life that has an impact on the world around you for years to come, comfort will not get you there. Revolutionary actions don’t come from comfort.
Think of any great historical leader. Were they comfortable? I doubt it. I bet each day was a battle with fear and self-doubt. Every day they had to ask themselves: “Am I willing to do this”, and every day they answered with a yes.
The beginning of a great life occurs when we start to feel fear, doubt, and insecurity, yet we carry on anyway.
To Be Bold Is to Be Different
To be bold, you have to be different from most people. People will try to persuade you to play it safe, to be more conventional, to adhere to societal norms. Some of these people might even think they’re helping you, but you are on a mission that requires you to be different.
Things that stand out are remembered. It is only when we do something unexpected that we create a movement or legacy. When Queen created Bohemian Rhapsody, the song was completely different from the rest of the music industry. Who would want to a song with opera and rock? Could something like that even work? It was a calculated risk that paid off. The song has remained an iconic piece of culture for decades.
We can’t be bold if we aren’t willing to stray from the beaten path. We have to be willing to go against our industry, society, and culture to do something people didn’t realize they wanted to be done.
Bold People Are True to Themselves
We all get the amazing opportunity to be ourselves. This means accepting and embracing the actions we take, ideas we exemplify, and the mistakes we make.
Bold people aren’t always right, but they stand behind themselves and the decisions they make. Regardless of their results, they love, value, and care for themselves.
They understand that we only have control of our intentions. As long as the intentions are good, we can’t fault the result.
Being Bold Doesn’t Have to Be Heroic
When we think of boldness, we like to imagine Steve Jobs at Apple or a daring general rescuing his side from certain defeat. Boldness, however, occurs around us each and every day.
Quitting your job to pursue something else, making an investment in an idea you believe in, and starting a conversation with someone new are all examples of boldness in our daily lives. Each requires breaking some form of social or financial security with a belief in yourself.
When we take a risk with the belief that we will find a way, we are acting in the spirit of boldness. Believing in ourselves and our ability to overcome challenges is the foundation of a bold life. With this attitude, we can try new things, challenge ourselves, and move on from our failures.
To live a memorable life, you have to be bold. And boldness starts with giving yourself permission to go into situations where you don’t know how to respond.
