Strange Bedfellows

Confidence and Courage are strange bedfellows – they share the same bed but get out on different sides each morning. Confidence steps out into the world unafraid, ready to tackle the known and defined challenge. Courage on the other hand, trembles as it puts one foot down, then the other, knowing that it faces an unknown, uncertain and risky future. Confidence seeks victory through training and preparation. Courage seeks to meet up with confidence by taking small steps, achieving satisfactory, but small victories, and eliminating the gap between the known and unknown.

Confidence and courage look alike to outsiders but feel different on the inside. Confidence is felt as “being in control” when the known outweighs the unknown, such as when a goal or outcome can be practiced. Honing your front sight focus for 1,000 hours will give you confidence that you can hit the target, with precision, when the conditions are satisfactory…as in a shooting tournament.

True confidence is tempered with humility. Humility is born from faith. Confidence with no humility is cockiness. Humility with no faith is insincere.

But what if you are ambushed and you find yourself in a firefight? The 1,000 hours of training is sure helpful, but not enough to get you through. This is where courage pushes confidence aside and takes the lead. Courage is looking down the barrel of fear, feeling it with all of the intensity of psychological and physiological triggers. Courage, however, is able to control the fear, allowing you to take the next step, make the next call, to not freeze but to fight with all of your willpower. You are unlikely to feel confident in those moments of crisis, but as long as you have courage, you can win.

Thus to be courageous and confident, we must have faith in ourselves and our team, the humility to know that we are mortals and not gods, and the fortitude to take action in spite of the fear of the unknown and uncontrollable. As warriors and leaders, we must develop both confidence and courage, built on a foundation of humility and faith.

Hey – if you haven’t seen the new SEALFIT video and enrolled in the free training videos on habituating confidence, courage and discipline, you can check them out at the new landing page for www.sealfit.com. Would love to hear your thoughts on the new video about SEALFIT as well as the Unbeatable Mind training series!

Hooyah! –Mark Divine