Every Good Thing in Your Life Started With a Brave Decision

How do you move forward when you're scared?

In this episode of Brave Moves, Julie DeLucca-Collins explores the connection between fear, courage, confidence, and personal growth. Julie shares why many of life's greatest opportunities begin with uncertainty and how looking back at your own experiences can provide powerful evidence that you're capable of doing hard things.

If you've been waiting to feel confident before taking action, this episode offers a mindset shift that can help you move forward despite fear.

In This Episode:

•  Why fear often appears before growth 
•  How courage creates confidence 
•  The psychology of fear and uncertainty 
•  Why confidence is built through action 
•  Learning from your past brave decisions 
•  How to trust yourself when facing a challenge 

Key Takeaway

The best things in your life probably didn't happen because you felt ready.

They happened because you were brave enough to begin.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Think about everything that has ever happened in your life. Maybe it was meeting your spouse or starting a business or writing a book, maybe having a child, or moving to a new city. Taking a chance in yourself. Everything good that you have right now in your life. Now here's my question. Were you scared before you did it? I bet you were. Because I look back in my life, and every good thing I have today started with a moment when I was afraid to move, and I moved anyway. Now, that's what I want to talk to you about today. And before we dive in, if you're enjoying this episode and you're enjoying brave moves, do me a favor, subscribe, leave a review if you haven't already done so, and share this episode with someone who may be standing on the edge of a decision right now. You never know whose brave move might begin with a conversation like this one. And stay with me till the end because at the end, I'm going to give you a simple exercise that can completely change how you think about fear and help you trust yourself the next time that fear shows up. Now let's get into it. There's a lie we tell ourselves. Most people believe confidence comes before action. And we think, when I feel confident, I'll start. When I feel ready, I'll go for it. When I know more, I'll raise my hand. When I have everything figured out, then I will take the leap. I have so many friends that I've watched them do this time and time again. But life doesn't work that way, honestly. Confidence is not a prerequisite. Confidence is a reward. It comes after you take action. It comes after you survive the scary thing. And it comes after you realize that you are capable more so than you ever gave yourself credit for. Fear is not a warning sign. One of the biggest mistakes we make in assuming things is that fear means stop. Fear doesn't always mean danger. Sometimes fear means growth and it means far more. And it's about entering maybe a new chapter. Sometimes fear means you're leaving behind an old version of yourself. And the problem is that our brain doesn't know the difference between a tiger chasing us or speaking on a stage. Your nervous system certainly is always either to your nervous system, uncertainty is uncertainty. So your brain is going to say things like, stay safe where you are, stay where it's familiar, stay where you know the outcome. But the best things in life really come when we live in that comfort zone, right? Looking back at my own life, I think the biggest blessings in my life came from the times in which I did not have certainty on anything. Starting a business, not certain how that was gonna turn out. It was scary. Writing my first book, scary as heck. I know I wanted to do it, but I didn't know. Well, so many questions. What are people gonna think? Is this gonna be good? Now, stepping into a TEDx stage, also scary as heck, terrifying. But I know this is something that I wanted to do. I felt strongly about what I wanted to share with the world and leaving the comfort zone of what I knew to pursue what I believed was possible, absolutely terrifying. But there's no guarantee that any of it was going to work before I did it. And there is no promise of success. There's only the decision, that brave decision. Every single one of those moments became a turning point for myself in my life. And not because I wasn't scared, but because I moved while I was scared. We forget our own evidence. I often tell my clients that they need to keep an evidence book. And what it is, is just basically writing down the things that you've accomplished because this is the thing that fascinates me. When we face new challenges, we act like we've never done anything hard before. We forget the evidence, we forget the career change, the move, the breakups we survive, maybe the loss we have been through and carried, the businesses that build, the risk that we took, but fear makes us forget our own track record. And that's unfortunate, my friend, because your life is filled with proof that you can do hard things. Now, the cost of waiting, here's what I've learned about that. If you wait until you feel ready, you may wait forever. I know I wanted to start my business for a very, very long time, years. And I waited. And listen, it turned out the way that it was supposed to turn out. But I know that if I kept waiting, I wouldn't be where I am today. And sometimes when you wait, you may wait forever because most brave decisions are made with incomplete information. Most successful people don't know exactly how things would work out. The simple decision they were willing to get is to learn along the way. The people who build meaningful lives are not fearless, friends. They're willing, willing to be uncomfortable and fail, and they're willing to learn and willing to try and try and try again. Now, courage is one of the most important things I've learned about. And courage always will come first. Confidence will come second. And we often think it's the other way around, but courage is the willingness to act before certainty arrives. And every time you do that, your confidence is going to grow. Not because someone told you that you could, because you proved it to yourself. What if it works, right? When we're afraid, we ask, what if I fail? What if it doesn't work? What if people judge me? Oh my God, these questions are so familiar to me because I've been there and done that. But what if the conversation is what if this changes everything? What is this opportunity leads to something amazing? What if the decision becomes one of the best choices I've ever made in my life? Because when I look back in my own life, almost every single blessing started with a question mark, not a guarantee. So here's your brave move for this week, my friend. Take out a piece of paper, write down five things you have been grateful for in your life. Five things that changed your life for the better. The next and next to each one, write down this happened because I was brave. Look at the evidence. Let your own life remind you that courage has served you before and it can serve you again. Now, my friend, every good thing in your life started with a moment when you didn't know how things would turn out. A moment when fear was present. A moment when certainty was missing, a moment when you choose courage anyway. So the next time fear shows up, don't automatically assume is a stop sign. Maybe it's an invitation. Maybe it's a point toward your next breakthrough. And maybe it's pointing toward the next brave move. And that is amazing. Now don't forget, my friend, go confidently in the direction of your dreams. And remember, I love you so much.