How Taking More Risks Could Be Your Most Valuable Asset
Your success depends on it
Making decisions can be difficult. Especially when there’s a lot at stake.
We do everything we can to make the “right” decision, usually out of fear of failure and sometimes ridicule.
As we allow our fear to guide more of our decisions, we get to a point where we default to playing things safe. We don’t even realize it’s happening. We decide to stay in that job because the benefits are good, or we constantly delay starting that business because we think we’ll fail. Being led by fear gets us to a point where we’re not really living our lives the way we want to anymore. Fear takes the helm, but it steers with no plan, no guidance, and no goals.
Listen to yourself
Sure, there are times when making a sensible and safe choice is the right thing to do. We’ve run the numbers, made the lists, and compared the pros and cons. We then make a decision — easy. But not all decisions can be made with data. Sometimes we need to listen to our gut. That voice from deep inside that wants the best for you, but can’t be heard because of the insane amount of noise drowning it out.
So, put your phone down, send your laptop off to sleep and try some meditation. With regular practice, it’s a proven fact that you can mute all that noise in your head and learn to focus on yourself. Listen carefully to that voice because it knows what to do — even if your conscious mind is saying no.
Choices
The truth is, you’ll never know if you’ve made the “right” decision. That’s simply because you never chose the alternative. You’ll never know what might have happened, had you chosen a different path.
Anyone seen the movie Sliding Doors?
The point is that every decision we make is a roll of the dice. Whether it’s a big one, like leaving everything behind and moving to a different country, or a fairly minor one about whether to buy a particular pair of shoes or not. Every decision we make puts us on a new life trajectory different from the one we were already on.
Think about that for a second. Blows the mind, doesn’t it?
The decisions we make are therefore important. Not only to us but also to those closest to us. If our lives change course, it means our nearest and dearest will also be affected to some degree or another. Even decisions made at work may not have a direct impact on your kids, but that decision may lead to something else, which could eventually result in a promotion or an opportunity to start a business. You never really know what might happen.
Taking Risks
All decisions are risky.
If, for example, you want to make a decision to stick with what you know or take a chance on something new, then the new thing carries more risk. That’s because it’s more of the unknown, and that scares us.
The problem comes in when we always stick with what we know, and regularly play it safe. This can lead to stagnation, lack of growth, and limited success.
Taking a chance on something may result in failures both big and small, but with the right mindset, these are often temporary. If you know the risks, plan for them and deal with them in the moment, you learn much more than any university or college degree ever could. These lessons are priceless because they are the way forward. The only real way to growth and success.
Fail Forward
As humans, we need to start learning how to fail better. We need to seek those risks out. Take more chances. We see super successful people around us all the time. We don’t often hear their stories of failure and misery as they made their journey to success. We should though. It’s an important part of the narrative. Do you think most of them took a chance on something they believed in? Pretty sure they did.
Yet most of us still take failure at face value. Beat ourselves up about it. Make it such a permanent thing in our lives. We forget, most importantly, that we’ve grown tremendously from the experience and that we should be grateful for it.
I’m not saying take a risk, just because it’s risky. What I’m saying is take calculated risks by gathering the data, writing the lists, and listening to your gut. Most importantly though, remember to take the time to think about how you will grow based on the decision you make. Know also that, if you fail or you feel like you’ve made the wrong decision, you’re learning from that experience and accelerating your growth exponentially.
You can never stop learning, even if you tried. The world is moving so fast, it’s hard to keep up. Just pay more attention to how you’re learning, and make sure you go out of your way to promote your own personal growth, so you can get to where you want to be.
You’ll never succeed without growing, and you’ll never grow without learning.
