Here we are, starting month two in 2015. How are you feeling? I trust you took time over the holidays to reflect on 2014 and create some excitement around your goals for 2015. Just like a good organic fertilizer for our plants, our goals will require consistent doses of nourishment. One of the main ingredients to nurture our goals is courage.

I read a post the other day that said: “You can be comfortable or courageous, but you cannot do both” — and I would add: “at the same time.”

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, courage is defined as “mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.”

Does that sound like something you have experienced? Over our lifetime, we have, no doubt, had many moments of being courageous. Courage comes from deep within all of us when our head and our heart connect and ignite. It’s that feeling we have when we get so emotionally engaged in what we want that no obstacles or circumstances will stand in our way.

It’s this exact thing we call courage that gives us energy and strength when we think we have none left to give; it’s that voice inside us that keeps saying, “yes we can.” It’s the feeling of leaning into it even though we don’t always know how. And it’s the unique feeling we have when anticipation meets exhilaration about the unknown.

It takes courage to walk our talk, to go after what it is we say we want, to believe in ourselves even when others may not, and to take that step forward when all we want to do is rest.

We know that by being courageous in this moment, our lives and the world will be different for all the moments to come.

Courage takes personal leadership and only we can go and grow more of it outside our comfort zone.

Grow your greatness by planting more courage seeds.

Elizabeth Shopland is a personal growth and development coach, a certified horticulturist and co-owner of Shopland Grow & Bloom Co. She can be reached at 250-342-8978.