How to be Bold
SUMMARY
People say to me “David, I can’t do what you’re doing. I can’t make the types of life changes that you’ve made. It’s too crazy.” No, it’s not crazy, it’s called BOLD. And the reason that you’re stuck in your life in whatever area that you feel unfulfilled in is because you aren’t choosing to be Bold. You’re living Life timid and Life doesn’t reward timid. If you really want everything that life is willing to offer you, you have to be Bold and step up and claim what’s yours. So here are my 3 tips on how to be BOLDER in your life.
#1 – Decide to Be Bold
I coach a woman that wants to be more engaged, more involved in life. She wants to be more aggressive about pursuing her dreams, to be unstoppable. But every time we start delving into what she needs to do to be bold and move forward, she’d focus on spending more time resolving the stuff that happened to her in the past. I get it. Things happened to her in her childhood or while she was growing up where at some point she decided it was best to be timid. We all do this. But she already knows this. How much time do we want to spend digging through all that stuff in the past? Finally I said to her STOP! If we’re going to move forward we need to move forward. How would you need to show up in order to BOLD? What would BOLD you look like? I told her the only thing standing between you and BOLDNESS is your decision to be BOLD. We just need to make the decision rather than believe that there’s something else we need to do before we do. JUST DECIDE. That leads me to my second point.
#2 – Start BEING Bold
Once you make the decision, you now have to be BOLD. So it follows that you need to understand what Bold looks like. When you’re BOLD how are you using your body? What language do you use? Do you focus your attention on things like ‘well what if this thing that I’m trying to accomplish doesn’t happen’ or ‘what if they don’t like me’ or do you focus on crushing it and overcoming any obstacle that comes your way. Do you focus on enrolling people to come along with you on your journey and focus on convincing them versus worrying about what they are going to think or say? The second thing we need to do now that we’ve decided is to be BOLD and that comes down to three things:
Physiology:
When you’re being bold, do you look up or look down when you’re speaking with someone? Are your shoulders back or hunched over? Do you feel grounded in your feet or unstable? Do you speak with authority and clarity or do you mumble? Boldness has a physical pattern in the body that we can access any time we simply want to be bold. There’s this idea of ‘act as if’ – act as if you are bold. I prefer to think of it more like just be the boldness that’s always been in you. Just let it out. When you commit to being BOLD in your life, or being anything for that matter, start paying attention to your physical body and whenever you notice that you aren’t in a BOLD stance – boom be physically bold again. If you pay attention to this after a while you’ll find that you’ll start to train your nervous system and your physiology to just be BOLD. Most of us have trained ourselves to be timid – now we simply need to develop a new pattern and one way we can do that is by using our physical body. Not all BOLD people were always BOLD I know I wasn’t. But it was important to me because I wanted to Master my world and I knew that I needed to learn how to be BOLD in order to do that. Timid people don’t run their show – the show runs them.
Language:
The second way to be Bold is to notice what language you’re using. What language do Bold people use – do they say ‘gee I hope it works out’ or ‘what if it doesn’t work out what am I going to do’ or ‘I don’t know what are other people going to think?’ Or do they move through life confidently thinking or saying ‘I know I’m the shit and no matter what happens everything that I need in order to continue to move forward and grow and be prosperous, that’s what I’m going to get out of this experience. Good or bad I’m going to make it great.” You have to pay attention to the words you are using and your self-talk and transform it into the language of BOLD when you notice that you are in a pattern of TIMID.
Focus:
The third way to BE BOLD is to notice what you’re focusing on. Whatever you put your attention on is going to determine how you show up. BOLD people have a natural tendency to put their attention on opportunities, potential victories, what’s working, what’s great about them. TIMID people focus on what could go wrong, what might happen if, what they should have done better, what they don’t have. What you FOCUS on dictates everything about how you show up in life so if you find yourself focused on something that makes you feel TIMID – BAM change your focus. Put your attention on something, anything, from the past, present or future, that makes you feel BOLD. Focus intently on that thing until you bring boldness back into your body and into your language – until you become BOLD again.
If you want to develop a new habit of Boldness, you must be consistently aware of what’s going on with your language and your focus and your physiology. Stop checking your news feed or your twitter and take a moment to pay attention to what you’re doing. I’m telling you it will transform your life.
#3- Seek Opportunities to be BOLD
The third thing I want you to do is seek out opportunities to express your boldness. Have you ever had a thought about doing something and then you think to yourself ‘I don’t know what if it doesn’t go well’ and you start to move away from it – maybe it’s ask out a guy or a girl or you have an idea at work and you’re in a meeting but you just end up keeping it to yourself. That’s when I want you to step up and BE BOLD. As soon as you notice yourself being timid about something the next you thing you do is be BOLD. Don’t give timid breathing room. If there’s something that make you uncomfortable at the thought of doing it – Bam that’s the next thing you do. You eat TIMID alive by stepping into your boldness the second you feel like you’re backing down. The first few times might be uncomfortable, it’s like jumping into a cold swimming pool – but after a few times the shock wears off and pretty soon your default response in situations is going to be to go right to bold. Close the gap between an opportunity to be Bold and Timid. Suffocate timid – snuff it out, and step into your Boldness again and again and again until it becomes your baseline behavior. You can use this framework to develop any character trait that you want to assume. This is how you can be more passionate, or energetic or confident or whatever.
So here’s a quick recap. 3 things you need to do to be more bold #1 decide to be bold, just make the decision. Make the decision that you want to show up in life on you terms and put life to work for you not the other way around. Life happens because you say so, not because you’re floating around on it like a cork on the ocean just praying that you won’t be tossed against the rocks. #2 Be Bold. Pay attention to your physical body, pay attention to your language and your self-talk. Any time you’re patterning after TIMIDITY go back to patterning after what BOLD looks like. Put your attention on the things and ask the questions that BOLD people would ask. Stay focused on the types of thoughts that feel empowering. Any time you start to feel TIMID again you know your focus has drifted – shift it – bring it right back to BOLD thoughts or memories. Lastly, pursue opportunities to be Bold. Notice when you’re in a situation and you start to shirk away and be timid again and BAM step up and let the BOLD you come out. Don’t sit in TIMID and stare at BOLD. Push TIMID in the pool and go right in after it. You do this a few times, it’ll change the way you show up in every aspect of your life. And that my friend, is how you Live Life Powerfully.
