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Courage often fades the longer we wait, because anticipation gives fear more time to grow.

Committing to enter a scary situation is easier than committing to go through with it.

Once we are already in the situation, taking action often feels less frightening compared to backing out.

A few years ago, I noticed my knee shaking when I climbed onto a stepladder. The thing wasn’t even a foot off the ground, and my body reacted like I was scaling Everest. I decided I had to do something to address my fear of heights. As a psychologist, I knew the best approach would be gradual exposure. Climb a rung on a ladder, let your nervous system adjust, then climb another one.

But I’m impatient. Also, I didn’t have a ladder.

So I decided to try another psychological approach—flooding. Which, in my case, meant doing the scariest thing I could think of: skydiving. If I could make myself jump out of an airplane at 12,000 feet, a stepladder would seem as trivial as a… stepladder.

We all have moments when we need to summon courage: to have a difficult conversation, give a presentation, apply for a program that intimidates us, or ask someone out. The problem is that courage is leaky. You wake up feeling ready to finally do the scary thing, but then you think about it, your stomach drops, you hesitate, your courage drains away, and you........

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