Outside Your Comfort Zone: How to Take Healthy Risks
Many people, by nature, are risk-averse. We like a sure thing. This helps us save energy, since we’re only acting when success is likely, reduces the possibility of embarrassment (you can’t trip and fall on stage if you’re seated in the audience), and lets us stay in our comfort zone.
But it also limits us from that amazing feeling of reaching for a slightly distant goal and attaining it. Those closest to us often have more confidence in our abilities than we do ourselves, which is part of why parents, spouses, or friends often try to push us toward taking a risk in the first place.
Here’s a distinction I find genuinely useful: not all risks are created equal, even when two risks look identical from the outside. What matters is whether you’re the one making the risk, or whether you’re simply taking one that’s been handed to you.
Risk-making is proactive. It’s a risk you choose because something on the other side of it genuinely matters to you. You might still feel nervous, maybe even scared, but you have a real reason for moving forward, and that reason is yours. Risk-taking, on the other hand, tends to be more reactive: an impulsive leap, a decision made under pressure, or something you were pushed into rather than something you chose. Think of your parents coaxing you onto a sports team you weren’t enthusiastic about, or an employer requiring a presentation you weren’t ready to give. That kind of risk tends to bring more pushback, anxiety, and fear, and it can leave you more reluctant to try something new next time. Choosing your own risks, on the other hand, tends to build confidence and a genuine growth mindset instead.
How to Encourage Risk-Making, in Yourself and in Others
Make It a Calculated Risk
Risk-making isn’t the same as recklessness. I sometimes tell clients: we’re not standing at a craps table in Vegas, hoping the dice land right. We’re using the knowledge and information we actually have to hedge our bets in favor of success. Stack the cards in your favor where you can, and avoid situations where you’d need a “Hail Mary” just to pull it off. You can build this kind of calculated risk by breaking it down into small, manageable steps.
Break Big Risks Into Small Steps
Take the bunny-slope approach and build confidence through smaller risks first. No one starts training for a marathon by running 26.2 miles on the first day. You start by lacing your shoes and walking around the block. Then you walk farther, add short stretches of running, and gradually build from there. Before long, you’ll have the confidence and experience to take on bigger risks.
Weigh the Real Drawbacks and Benefits
Both action and inaction are choices, and both come with consequences. Take an honest, objective look at what you’d be sacrificing by moving forward, as well as what you stand to gain. The same goes for staying put.
Redefine Success and Failure
All-or-nothing thinking convinces a lot of people that risk-making is simply too risky. Try changing your definition of failure instead. A risk you make on purpose is a learning opportunity, a chance to figure out what works and what needs adjusting. It wouldn’t really be a risk if it worked out perfectly every time. Measure success by the fact that you put yourself out there in the first place, not only by the outcome. That’s usually where the real creativity and growth happen anyway.
If fear or anxiety is what’s been keeping you on the risk-averse side of this equation, it can help to look at what’s driving that anxiety more directly, or work through some of the automatic negative thoughts that tend to talk people out of a risk before they’ve even tried. And if you’re chasing a specific goal on the other side of that risk, our post on reaching your goals while enjoying the ride picks up right where this one leaves off.
Go ahead. Make a risk. See what happens, and enjoy the confidence that comes from stretching yourself.
