When Courage Is Asked of You — Are You Ready?

What happens when the need for courage arrives out of the blue — when you feel least ready?

It’s easy to assume that if something like that happened, you wouldn’t know what to do — that you wouldn’t be strong enough, or able to summon the courage required.

And yet, the stories I’ve heard in Finding Courage suggest something else.

Julie McCabe was six months pregnant, caring for her toddler and her niece, when she received the call that her husband had suffered a rugby accident that would leave him paraplegic and change their lives forever.

Tara Parish was just 18 when the domestic violence began. By the time she found the courage to leave, she had three young children and years of fear behind her.

Rhonda Millikin had built a successful career and developed technology that would change how we understand bird migration when her superiors began bullying her and tried to force her out.

None of these women chose their circumstances. But each found a way to respond.

And what stands out in their stories is this: they didn’t begin with a clear plan, a surge of confidence, or a single act of bravery.

They simply started where they were — and kept going.

Courage, One Moment at a Time

We often imagine courage as something big and decisive — a moment where everything changes.

But when life demands courage, it rarely works like that.

Julie remembers that after her husband’s accident, “Every day was just getting the best results for the next minute and then the next minute.”

Not the next year. Not even the next day. Just the next minute.

Tara’s story follows a similar pattern. Leaving her abusive husband wasn’t a single moment of bravery, but a process that unfolded over years — supported by therapy, friendships, and her children’s love.

What these stories show is that courage, when it’s asked of you, is often incremental.

It’s not about rising above everything all at once.

It’s about making the next decision — and then the next.

And that’s something most of us are already capable of.

Just Enough Self-Belief

Another thread running through these stories is self-belief.

But not the kind we often associate with courage — not unwavering confidence or certainty. Something quieter than that.

Tara described it in her own words: “There are still two internal voices. The realistic voice that reminds me I’ve achieved so much, and the darker voice that tells me I should have done better, and I deserve all the bad things that happened. Both voices are still there, but the good voice wins most of the time these days.”

That idea feels important.

Courage doesn’t require you to silence doubt. It just asks that something in you — however small — is strong enough to keep you moving forward.

A Sense of What’s Right

Alongside incremental action and self-belief, there is often something else at play: a sense of what’s right.

For Julie, that was her family. Even when her husband urged her to leave and start again, something in her told her to stay.

For Tara, it was the desire to create a different life for her children — one without violence.

For Rhonda, it was a belief in the importance of her work, and a refusal to walk away from it.

In each case, that sense of what mattered acted as a kind of anchor — something steady to return to when everything else felt uncertain.

You May Already Have What You Need

When we look at stories like these, it’s easy to think of courage as something extraordinary — something reserved for other people, in extreme situations.

But these stories suggest something else.

They suggest that when courage is asked of you, you don’t need to have everything figured out. You don’t need a grand plan. You don’t need to feel ready. You don’t even need to feel confident.

You just need to take the next step. And then the next.

With enough belief to keep going. And a sense of what matters to guide you.

So if life were to place you in a situation that demanded courage —there’s a good chance you already have what you need.