Are You Born Courageous, or Does Doing CourageousThings Make You That Way?
To change your mind, sometimes you need to change your behavior first
There’s a very remote island in the Indian Ocean where, for a time in my 20's, I worked as a scuba diving instructor. Every week, people showed up, ready to do something scary — dive deep into an ocean full of things that were ready to sting, bite, and even eat them.
I started wondering: did these people come here because they were already adventurous? Or did they come hoping to become adventurous? Was adventure something you were born with, or was it something you could grow into?
Since those days I thought of this question in many different contexts. Does action follow motivation, or is it the other way around? Do you need to study something before you can do it, or does doing it make you good at it? Do you become courageous by doing things that require courage?
The answer seems obvious, right? So then why are we waiting for the right time to do the courageous or seeking motivation to do the adventurous thing?
Mood Follows Action
We like to think that change starts in the mind, and then our actions follow. We often wait for the urge or the motivation to strike before doing the workout or starting the creative project. We need to feel inspired before we can become inspired. We believe we have to want to take risks before we actually take them.
It turns out we’ve got it backward.
What if the secret to transformation isn’t thinking our way into a new identity, but acting our way into it? This is the fundamental idea behind mood follows action. The concept flips the traditional self-help model on its head: instead of waiting for motivation to strike, we take action first — and let our mindset catch up.
The Body Leads, the Mind Follows
If you’ve ever forced yourself to go for a run when you really didn’t want to, you’ve experienced this firsthand. You start sluggish, resistant, half-convinced it’s a terrible idea. But then, something shifts. The movement takes over. Your body adjusts, your energy kicks in, and suddenly — you want to be there. Your mood changes because you acted.
This isn’t just anecdotal. Neuroscience backs it up. The brain constantly takes cues from the body, a concept known as embodied cognition — the idea that our thoughts, emotions, and perceptions are influenced by our physical actions.
Here are some simple examples we’ve all experienced:
- Studies show that forcing a smile, even when you don’t feel happy, can actually trigger feelings of happiness.
- Holding a confident posture can increase feelings of self-assurance.
- Moving into action — even when you don’t feel ready — signals to the brain that you are capable, shifting your mindset from doubt to confidence.
Becoming Adventurous (Even When You’re Not)
Let’s bring this back to adventure.
Many people assume they need to feel adventurous before they can do adventurous things. They wait for some internal shift — some burst of confidence — to give them permission.
But as I learned on that remote island, the people who became adventurous weren’t necessarily wired that way from the start. Many of them were cautious, even anxious. The difference was that they said yes anyway. They took the dive, climbed the rock face, or booked the one-way ticket. And then — only after acting — did they start to see themselves as courageous.
The action rewrote the identity.
Unlocking Change Through Behavior
The idea that mood can be affected by action has profound implications beyond motivation and adventure. Learning a new skill might be faster is we can immediately start doing something associated with that new skill.
- Want to be more confident? Act confident first — speak up in a meeting, hold eye contact, stand tall. Confidence follows.
- Want to be creative? Start creating. Don’t wait for inspiration to hit — begin the work, and the inspiration will follow.
- Want to be disciplined? Stop waiting for the right mindset — structure your day as if you already are. Discipline is built through repeated action, not wishful thinking.
In other words, don’t wait to feel ready. Act as if you are already the person you want to become.
The Counterintuitive Unlock to Changing Your Life
The biggest lie we tell ourselves is that we need to feel different before we can be different. That we have to fix our mindset first.
But real change is messy. It doesn’t come from perfectly aligned thoughts — it comes from stepping into discomfort, from doing before believing. The mind resists, but the body leads.
And eventually, when you act like the person you want to become — when you make the choices they would make — your brain catches up.
Mood follows action. Identity follows behavior. And before you know it, you are the person you once thought you could never be. But there’s one more unlock that might be the most important of them all: who you take action with.
The Psychology of Being Courageous
There are two types of people in my scuba diving adventure story:
- The Adventurers — These are the people who seem wired for excitement. They climb mountains, dive with sharks, and book one-way tickets without breaking a sweat.
- The Aspirational Adventurers — These folks aren’t naturally inclined to seek out the edge, but they feel drawn to the idea of it. They sign up for the experiences hoping to shake themselves out of routine, face fears, or prove something to themselves.
Now, imagine these two groups in a Venn diagram. The overlap is fascinating because the more someone does adventurous things, the more they start to become adventurous. The more they face their fears and do the scary thing, the more likely they are to want to do that again. Courage makes courage. Exposure rewires their perception of risk, builds confidence, and changes how they engage with uncertainty.
But here’s the kicker: like adventure, courage, isn’t just about the environment — it’s about who you experience it with.
Risk Is Social
One of the biggest surprises from my time on that island was realizing that the so-called “adventurers” weren’t all lone wolves. Many were just as nervous as the beginners — they just hid it better. What gave them an edge wasn’t necessarily a higher tolerance for risk, but rather the support of people they trusted.
Psychologists call this social facilitation — the idea that we perform better (or take bigger risks) when we’re around others who encourage us. This is why people are more likely to try something new when they’re with friends who have already done it. It’s why climbing Kilimanjaro in a group feels possible, but doing it alone feels insane.
So, does exposure to adventure make you more adventurous? Can forcing yourself to be courageous lead to you becoming courageous? Yes — but especially if you have the right social conditions.
How Adventure Shapes You
The more you engage in adventurous activities, the more your brain rewires its relationship with fear and uncertainty. Studies in neuroscience suggest that repeated exposure to novel experiences helps strengthen the brain’s ability to handle ambiguity. In other words, adventure, and it’s close cousin courage, builds resilience.
But it’s not just about doing the thing — it’s about what happens afterward. If your first skydiving experience was terrifying but exhilarating, you’re more likely to say yes to bungee jumping next time. If you went solo backpacking and figured out how to navigate a foreign city, your confidence in handling the unknown skyrockets.
It’s a loop: Take a risk > Survive > Gain confidence > Explore new things outside your comfort zone
And so, the once-cautious traveler who signed up for a quick scuba lesson out of curiosity suddenly finds themselves booking a week-long diving trip exploring wrecks of the coast of Bermuda.
So, Can You Be Courageous if You’re Not?
Here’s where it gets interesting: being courageous about your life, or even adventurous, isn’t just about extreme sports or far-flung travel. It’s about your relationship with uncertainty.
- Do you seek out new experiences, even small ones, in everyday life?
- Are you comfortable with discomfort?
- Do you embrace change rather than avoid it?
True adventurers aren’t just the ones scaling cliffs in Patagonia. They’re the ones willing to say yes when every instinct tells them to stay comfortable.
And for those who don’t naturally lean toward adventure? Well, the good news is — you can grow into it. Surround yourself with people who push boundaries, expose yourself to new experiences, and little by little, you might just wake up one day and realize: you are adventurous.
Not because you always were — but because you decided to be.
