💬 When Your Mind Is Made Up
Rosa Parks · Civil rights activist
"I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear."
Certainty Is Its Own Kind of Courage
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, an act that helped ignite the modern civil rights movement. In her 1992 memoir, Rosa Parks: My Story, she explained that the moment wasn't the spontaneous outburst it's often portrayed as — her mind had already been made up long before that bus ride.
Her insight flips the usual advice around. Most people wait to feel brave enough to decide. She found the opposite worked better: decide first, clearly and completely, and the fear has a lot less room left to operate.
Next time fear is the thing stalling you, check whether you've actually made up your mind yet. Half-decided is where fear lives most comfortably — a fully made-up mind tends to crowd it out.
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