Are you Taking Risks or Are you Settling?


Taking risks is important. When you settle for less than you want – It’s costly.

If you avoid risk or if you downgrade your expectations – what are you telling yourself? Telling the universe?
A number of things happen when you don’t risk following through on what you think about, dream on or  desire:
1. You get congruent.
Incongruousness means your head, your heart and your hands are no longer mirroring each other. You are being in-authentic.
At first blush, it’s easy to under-estimate the cost of being in-congruent. You might think, ‘If I act this way, it’s ok, no one knows.’
Sometimes we think others do not notice when we say or do something different from what we are thinking.  When we are not fully authentic – others CAN sense it.  You can – so you know deep down that can others too.

Take 1 moment to think about someone you believed was being inauthentic.
What do you think that kind in-congruence might cost you? What do you think being a little more authentic would bring you?

2. You get less committed. Often when we settle around our commitments it’s easy to let things slide. They may not always slip all the way to apathy – but they are less energized towards success for sure.

If you allow yourself to give less than your very best… What is the cost of that to your soul? To your self-esteem? To your self-confidence?
Give yourself a challenge of being 5% more committed today – and test out if the experience – changes you way you feel and think about yourself.
3. You get less success. If you are wanting to avoid the disappointment of failing, you more than likely are not going to get the reward of learning. They tend to go hand-in-hand.

Accepting less, in exchange for not having to feel – what ever the risk would cost you – Is costly.

You generally get less of what you do want and a lot more of what you don’t want. If you want to move forward with greater certainty –  be willing to risk.
4. You take less risks. Your self-expression may be limited by fear. Perhaps, you are fearing who you might leave someone behind, or if you fear you will lose love or approval.

If you were powerfully and fully self-expressed, often the by-product is a settling in, a settling in to being a smaller self than your potential.
There is no doubt full self-expression brings greater personal fulfillment. So, if you withhold your self-expression – you just might lose out on some out-of-this-world personal fulfillment.
A poem by William A. Ward says it all so well:
“To laugh is to risk appearing the fool. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach for another is to risk involvement. To expose your feelings is to risk exposing your true self. To place your ideas, your dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss. To love is to risk not being loved in return. To live is to risk dying. To believe is to risk despair. To try is to risk failure. But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live. Chained by their attitudes they are slaves; they have forfeited their freedom. Only a person who risks is free.”

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