What Steps Are Necessary When Taking Risks?

Whether we own a business, work as an employee or just want to live our life fully, taking risks has shown as the most important and decisive factor for our success. Taking a risk made us stronger, brings us a sense of greater self-confidence, and helps us feel alive. It pushes us from our safety zone, where we do things mostly routinely and mechanically. In the long run, playing safely makes us bored and lifeless. We need to try new things, because it challenges us, confronts us with our fears and brings us excitement. The real challenge can motivate us and awaken our energy. When speaking about risks, an idea is not to pursue risky actions at all costs and without previous preparation. It is not necessary to adopt a gambling philosophy and make challenges only to prove ourselves that we can. Often, taking risks refers to small actions or slight changes in our behavior that move us from the safety zone. Rushing around and taking a risky action without previous reflection on the issue, or without enough knowledge and information, or, what is worse, without a proper skill, will not lead us anywhere. In order to make progress, it would be wise to consider the following steps in taking risks, as cited from the article “Take Risks: 4 Steps”.

Step 1: Look through the risk
Before you start your journey, you need to begin by picturing the end of that journey. Envision what wild success would look like, and imagine it in great detail: What will it feel like, taste like and smell like? Every bit of additional detail will help. Thinking about your goal has a few benefits. First, it gets you clear about why you want to try this new thing (what are the specific motivators that have started you down this path?). Knowing your “why” will help when the going gets rough. Second, this makes you focus on the positives, instead of the negatives. Sure, starting something new can be scary, but you need to pay attention to what you stand to gain, not “what’s the worst than can happen.”

Step 2: Recognize the obstacles
If you’ve decided you want to do something, but you haven’t started working on it yet, why is that? Think through the risk you’re considering to take and identify the opposition. Your mind will drift to the areas you see as being resistant on the path to your goal. For now, this is just going to feel like a giant shadowy area. That’s because you haven’t taken the time to find out what’s between you and your goal. In order to take risks, you need to get specific about the things you’ll need to overcome. They can be physical obstacles (lack of money, not having the right gear) and intangibles too (fear of the unknown, lack of time to start something new).

Step 3: Start
“The secret to getting ahead is getting started” – Mark Twain
The biggest setback to change is good old-fashioned resistance. It’s easy to get caught up in “analysis paralysis” and spend your days sketching out your perfect route to achieving your personal goals. However, at some point you simply need to start. This is the hardest part, and unfortunately there aren’t any secret tips or tricks, just your willpower and the doing. That’s why, as soon as you’re clear on your goal and are ready to take risks, you should get started — even if it’s a rocky start. An imperfect start beats a perfect daydream on paper any day. Go after your dream and aim for forward motion every day, no matter how small.

Step 4: Enjoy the ride
Once you’ve started down the road to your goal, enjoy the ride. Success doesn’t necessarily come quickly, but by simply starting down the road you’re closer to your dream than you’ve ever been before. Anything worth doing is going to come with at least a small price — it’s an essential part of taking risks and breaking out of your comfort zone. So, be proud of yourself just for starting.

Through these steps, we can prepare ourselves for risk actions. Every risk imposes on us a challenge to learn something new. By taking risks, we can gain valuable insights that represent precious knowledge, and it could not be acquired in some other way. Our unique experience, which includes actively seeking challenges, made our existence deeply valuable. Through this experience, we become closer to our true strength and less afraid to show our authenticity. By undertaking risking actions, we widen our boundaries and overcome our limits. Every new action opens us to another new action. In other words, we run the chain reaction of trying new things. In this way, we become more open to life, flexible, and gain more freedom. What is more, our life is not anymore a sum of actions, which we take out of fear to avoid failure; it is a rather fulfilling process in which we truly enjoy.