cor, the heart
Courage
Courage was never the absence of fear. It was acting with your whole heart while afraid, which means it can be practised.
What is courage?
Courage comes from cor, the Latin for heart, and originally meant to speak your mind by telling all your heart. It was never the absence of fear. It was acting wholeheartedly while afraid, which is a much more useful definition, because the first one is impossible and the second one is a skill.
Why it works
Fear is a prediction, not a verdict. It is your brain estimating cost based on the last time something similar happened, often long ago and often to a much younger version of you. Acting while afraid updates the estimate with new evidence, which is the only thing that actually lowers it. Waiting for the fear to go first is waiting for evidence you have refused to gather.
How to use it
Say the awkward thing within a day of noticing you are avoiding it. Not the big one, the small one. The estimate updates on the small ones just as well, and they cost far less to be wrong about.
What proving it looks like
"Said the thing to my manager. Afraid, eight out of ten. Nothing bad happened. 12 Feb."
Where this lands
This is what a quest is: courage, repeated, with the evidence kept.
This is one of the ideas inside Character Arc. See where it lands on your own line.