4 : Leap Before You Look?

I suggested on the Home page that one reason you might decide to work with a coach was to "look before you leap" in order, when making decisions, to explore how best to balance courage and risk-taking with wisdom. 

However, I’m also going to suggest that the advice to “Look before you leap” is not always the best advice.

Last week I was given the opportunity to run a workshop at two conferences on ‘Managing Diversity in the Public Sector’. “Yes please” I immediately responded (knowing that there were few workshops and many possible providers). “I’ll do something on ‘Bridging the Gap Between Policy & Practice".

Then, when my offer had been accepted, I asked for more information.
When I got it (up to 50 participants, 45 - 60 minutes long, interactive), I gulped (and started flapping my wings).

Now, that wasn’t a particularly big risk. But in the same way that the muscles of our body go flabby if not used, our risk-taking ‘muscles’ can also go flabby if they don’t get regular exercise.

Try this.
Reflect upon your life and make a list of :
1. Occasions when you could have taken a risk – and you did. What were the positive consequences of taking the risk? What were the negative ones?
2. Occasions when you could have taken a risk – and you didn’t. What were the positive consequences of not taking the risk? What were the negative ones?

How do you know?

In reality, all we can ever know is whether the outcomes appear to be positive or negative so far.
 
I’m not suggesting that taking a risk is always the right thing to do.
But I am asking you to look at your usual relationship to risk-taking.

 A research project asked college-students to make hypothetical decisions involving a  risky option and a safe one. Students who were ‘risk averse’ also showed high levels of anxiety and tended to focus on the likelihood of bad outcomes. Anxiety and expecting the worse would be perceived as reasons for avoiding risk. However, not taking risks did not reduce their anxiety or their general negative expectations.
 
What process do you go through when deciding whether to take a risk or not?

Do you try to predict all the possible outcomes?
Do you imagine as many positive outcomes as negative ones?
 
Look back at your list of risks that you did and didn’t take.
How closely did the actual outcomes, both positive and negative, match your imagined ones?
 
The decision-making process itself – especially where there is a perception of risk - can use up enormous amounts of energy and create a lot of stress, sleepless nights and anxiety.
 
Once you decide to 'leap', accepting that the outcomes are always uncertain, all that energy is then available for ‘flying’ – for making whatever decision you made work.

And at the very worst – whatever happens – you will learn something. So if  there is something that you’ve been putting off, how about just doing it?

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