Kate Swoboda is joining me today to celebrate the release of her brand new book, The Courage Habit: How to Accept Your Fears, Release the Past, and Live Your Courageous Life. Kate (who is also known as Kate Courageous) is a life coach, the founder of Courageous Living Coach Certification, and Your Courageous Life. And, I’ve had the pleasure of working with her previously as a mentor in her coaching certification program.

Kate’s work has been multifaceted around courage and fear, and her path to becoming a published author is inspiring. After having her book proposal accepted, she came to the realization that she wanted to go deeper on the questions of how we develop courage, and what holds us back from acting courageously. She asked her publisher if she could change up the focus of the book (they said yes!) and she created a book that brings in neuroscience, behavioral psychology, and other fields to develop the framework for The Courage Habit.

In this episode, Kate Swoboda and I talk about:

• Her new book, The Courage Habit
•  Her road to becoming a published author, along with her advice to anyone wishing to get a book published (keep trying)
• How she proposed a new angle on the book, after the proposal was accepted
• How to start practicing courage based behaviors and get “unstuck”
• Experiencing fear, and practicing mindfulness to recognize that you’re experiencing fear, while also stepping back to observe your own “stress responses”
• The Inner Critic, and the ways that the Inner Critic counteracts courage:
  o Perfectionism
  o People Pleasing
  o Sabotage
  o Pessimism
• That we need to work with (instead of against) the Inner Critic, by meeting him/her with unconditional love and acceptance
• The role of community in developing courage
• The question of “what if courage could be easy.”

Resources
The Courage Habit: How to Accept Your Fears, Release the Past, and Live Your Courageous Life by Kate Swoboda on Amazon
Courageous Living Coach Certification - CLCC
Kate Swoboda’s site: Your Courageous Life

Kate Swoboda on past Jump Start Your Joy episodes:
Kate Swoboda on “Courage as a Path to Healing (Episode 8, Season 1)
The Crossroads of Courage and Creating Habits with guest Kate Courageous (Episode 80, Season 2)
Season Two Finale: A Roundtable on Joy, Finding Inspiration, and Self Care in Difficult Times (Episode 101, Season 2)