Guts: More guts to get more out of your life

Bet you have more guts than you think? Guts are needed to seize all the opportunities in life that it has to offer. After all, opportunities are often risks; they can end well or badly. If you have enough guts you dare to go for an opportunity, even if the bad outcome is very much against you

What is guts?

The meaning of guts is having the heart to give you the courage to do certain things. With guts, you find a certain thing so important that it gives you the courage to overcome your fear.

What do you need guts for?

You need courage if you’re passionate about a particular cause and want to achieve something with it. This could mean, for example, raising money for a charity, living a certain way, or becoming an entrepreneur.

If you are entrepreneurial, for example, courage helps you make things happen. To take steps necessary to make your business known, for example. Guts helps you to stick to your plans and ideas and to keep faith in a good outcome, even when things go against you for a while.

Having the courage to take certain actions doesn’t mean you don’t feel fear. It means you’ve learned to manage that fear more effectively and may even be able to thrive—thanks to that courage—in an environment that’s hostile to your goal[1].

The hierarchy of guts

Guts also has a certain hierarchy. After having enough courage to make a certain choice, courage also helps you through that choice. The hierarchy is explained a little further here:

1. Guts and decision-making

Initially, you need guts to take the1st step of many steps. You make a decision and need guts to say "yes" to something despite uncertainties about whether you can bring it to fruition.

2. Guts to persevere

Once you’ve taken that first step, you often have the momentum to take the second and third steps. If you have a big goal, there’s a good chance you’ll need to take even more steps than just thosefirst three. In that case, courage helps you maintain your perseverance. Failure is a reality you have to deal with, but as long as you keep getting back up, it’s not a big deal.

You stay strong for short-term goals to achieve your long-term goal.

3. Guts to change

At times when achieving goals is difficult you also need guts to go for a plan B. You need guts to change your chosen path to achieve your goal in a different way. So you need guts to do things differently than usual for once.

Gain more courage

Gaining more courage can be done in multiple ways. In the workplace, for example, crisis training can make you more daring. Certain life experience, which allows you to say that everything will work out anyway, and a good circle of people around you helps you gain guts.

Overcoming fear for more courage

So with certain life experiences comes a confrontation with a certain fear. For example, if you have a fear that stops you from doing something you have heart for. For example, you want to raise money to fund research into a cure for a certain disease, but find it scary to draw attention to that cause or to walk past the doors (because who are you actually ringing the doorbell to).

Overcoming fear is best done by confronting yourself with it. This is something hypnosis can help you with. For example, hypnosis can help you figure out the reason for your anxiety.

Removing the reason for anxiety

For example, the way you see the world—your beliefs—has a major influence on what you are and aren’t afraid of. Sometimes, simply removing the source of your fear can go a long way toward overcoming it.

When you receive hypnotherapy, it often involves regression. This takes you back to the very first moment you experienced that fear, and using your current knowledge, you work through that moment so that you no longer need to be afraid.

Gradual confrontation with anxiety

To check if the regression helped, the hypnotist can confront you with your fears.

This doesn't have to be very extreme all at once. You can also confront your fear step by step. In most cases, you then make a top 10 of that fear you have. For example:

  1. Afraid of an empty street.
  2. Afraid of an empty street in the dark.
  3. Afraid to stand in an empty street.
  4. Afraid to stand on an empty street in the dark.
  5. Afraid to see images of people walking down the street alone.
  6. Afraid to walk down the street alone.
  7. Afraid to walk the streets alone at dusk.
  8. Afraid to walk the streets alone in the dark.
  9. Afraid to ring the doorbell of strangers.
  10. Afraid to ring the doorbell of strangers with a dog.

With hypnosis, you can visualize these fears. You then also get to deal with your body's physical reaction to fear, if it has not already been eliminated by regression, and you then learn how best to deal with it.

For example, you learn to control your breathing and to relax your muscles so that your physical response to anxiety does not make the mental anxiety even stronger.

Changing beliefs for more courage

In addition to overcoming fear for getting more guts, hypnosis can also help you change your beliefs for getting more guts. As mentioned, regression is one way to change your beliefs, in addition there are other techniques to change your outlook.

For example, visualizing how something can go well is one such way. It need not be used only for overcoming anxiety. It can also be used for showing the potential of taking certain steps. Visualizing a step you want to take with a good outcome makes you more likely to do it in real life.

In addition to regression and visualization, repeating hypnotic suggestions aloud can also do a lot for changing your beliefs. Especially since you do this while under hypnosis, it has influence. (More influence than if you read it off a PC screen, but every little bit helps)

These may include suggestions such as:

"It's super cool to help people."

"Regret is worse than trying and failing."

"I can (learn) anything."

"It's fun to take a different approach to things," says Dr. K. K., "and it's fun to do things differently."

These are just examples of hypnotic suggestions. Depending on your beliefs and what you want to be bold about, a hypnosis expert can give you other suggestions.

Practical tips for getting more courageous

In addition to hypnosis, other ways to gain more courage include:

Do something new

By occasionally going outside your comfort zone and doing something you've never done before, you learn that you have more up your sleeve than you thought. This also builds your courage and confidence to do things differently.

Learn new things

Gaining knowledge makes you more confident; more confidence makes you more daring. By having new skills and gaining new knowledge, you also know more which makes certain choices and steps easier because you can better assess the risks.

Do something exciting

Doing something that causes a little anxiety also helps you learn to deal with that anxiety. For example, you could do an escape room with your friends, go wall climbing, abseiling or drive fast on the German autobahn. Doing something physical that takes guts, also gives you more courage for projects that take longer.

Guts are incredibly useful for doing things you have heart for, but find very exciting. Hypnosis helps in multiple ways to become more courageous and to make your dreams come true. In addition you can do practical things, hypnosis can also help with this. For example, by visualizing this.

Want to know how hypnosis works and feels? Then join the free online master class on hypnosis .

Would you like to know how you can use hypnosis to help yourself and others? Then sign up for one of our training programs. Ask about the online options if that suits you better.

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[1] Heart, smarts, guts, and luck: what it takes to be an entrepreneur and build a great business
AK Tjan, RJ Harrington, TY Hsieh - 2012