Every time you do the hard thing, you become someone for whom hard things are slightly easier. Courage is not a feeling, it is a practice, and it compounds. You have already been brave more times than you give yourself credit for. Every conversation you had despite fear, every step you took without certainty, every time you chose to try again, that is a record of who you are. You are not starting over. You are building on everything you have already survived and chosen.