Today’s neuroscience and psychology affirm that fear is part of leadership, growth, and meaningful living.
Real bravery isn’t all grit. It requires compassion—especially self-compassion.
Research shows that anxiety can help us function better when it’s present in moderate amounts.
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” –Franklin D. Roosevelt
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We live in a world that often confuses courage with fearlessness. From movies to motivational mantras, we’re taught to admire the unshakable hero. But real courage isn’t about being immune to fear; it’s about being afraid and choosing to act anyway.
In an age of rising anxiety, we need a more honest, science-backed view of what courage really is. One that accepts fear as part of the human experience and even as a useful part of what it means to be courageous. We can find this wisdom in the legacy of Abraham Lincoln, in the discoveries of modern neuroscience, and in how we learn to work with anxiety rather than against it.
Lincoln Didn't Wait for Calm—He Took Action Anyway
Lincoln faced staggering fear and uncertainty. He wrestled with depression, grief, and the weight of national division. Yet he led. His famous quote, “The best way to predict the future is to create it,” reflects a profound truth: Even amid fear, action is possible and necessary.
This is the essence of courage. Not eliminating fear, but putting values, purpose, or people above that fear and choosing to move forward.
Anxiety Isn’t Always a Problem; Sometimes, It's Performance Fuel
Contrary to the belief that anxiety is purely negative, research shows it can help us function better when it’s present in moderate amounts. This is the core of the Yerkes-Dodson Law, a foundational psychological principle introduced in 1908. It shows that optimal performance happens not when anxiety is absent, but when it's balanced. In other words, not too much and not too little.
This is what athletes and performers describe as being "in the zone." Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [who is the only person on the planet who can spell her name right on the first try] called it "flow"—that energized focus when you're fully immersed in a task (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). The bottom line: Anxiety can actually sharpen our attention and boost motivation when we learn to use it well.
Avoidance Fuels More Anxiety
One of the biggest misconceptions about anxiety is that it should be eliminated. We try to avoid it, distract ourselves, or suppress it. But avoidance tends to make anxiety stronger over time and can lead to panic and phobias. What begins as a discomfort becomes something we fear, simply because we never learn how to face it.
This fear of anxiety is what we call secondary anxiety, and it often spirals such that the more we try to outrun anxiety, the more intense it becomes. But when we stop avoiding and start engaging, even gently, the anxiety starts to lose its grip.
What You Think About Anxiety Changes How It Affects You
In 2012, researchers at the University of Wisconsin studied more than 28,000 people and found something astonishing: People who believed stress was harmful had significantly worse health outcomes—even if their stress levels were low. Meanwhile, those who had high stress but did not believe it was harmful had no increased risk of mortality.
How we perceive stress changes how our bodies respond to it.
This is echoed by Harvard researcher Alison Brooks, who found that people who told themselves they were “excited” rather than “nervous” before a test performed significantly better (Brooks, 2014). Simply reframing the emotion shifted the outcome.
And it goes deeper. Psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett has shown that how we label our bodily sensations (e.g., a racing heart, tight chest, or butterflies) actually helps create our emotional experience (Barrett, 2017). If we call it fear, we feel fear. If we call it anticipation or readiness, we feel that instead.
Mark Twain once said, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.” This isn’t just a clever quote—it’s a principle supported by clinical research. Courage is a behavior. And like any behavior, it gets stronger with repetition.
Each time we face a fear and engage courage, we build a little more confidence. Each time we step forward—however awkwardly—we strengthen our resilience. The key is to focus on what we can do, instead of what we can’t control.
Even the smallest action can shift anxiety into agency.
Compassion Is a Tool for Courage
Real bravery isn’t all grit. It requires compassion—especially self-compassion. Research by Kristin Neff and Chris Germer shows that self-compassion is linked to lower anxiety and better emotional resilience (Neff & Germer, 2013). Being gentle with ourselves helps us stay regulated in the face of fear.
Brené Brown describes empathy as “feeling with people.” It’s the willingness to sit with discomfort—ours or someone else’s—without jumping to fix or flee. When we meet fear with curiosity and empathy, we soften it. We make it more tolerable.
Ask yourself: What would I say to a friend feeling this way? And how can I offer that same care to myself?
What Lincoln Knew—and What We Can Use Today
Lincoln never claimed to be fearless. He claimed responsibility. He moved forward, despite his fears, because he believed in something more important than fear. That’s courage.
Today’s neuroscience and psychology affirm his legacy: Fear is part of leadership, growth, and meaningful living. Courage isn’t about silencing that fear or avoiding anxiety. It’s about listening to it, learning from it, and using it to act.
“I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.” –Abraham Lincoln
References
Barrett, L. F. (2017). How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Brooks, A. W. (2014). Get Excited: Reappraising Pre-Performance Anxiety as Excitement. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(3), 1144–1158.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper & Row.
Psych. Today