In previous post about taking risks I've encouraged you to be you and take healthy risks. If you have followed these post then you know that a snake has to shed his skin in order to grow. You must take action instead of reacting. The shining memories will be the times when you took a leap of faith, whether you won or not and you did so by taking action. Are you a dreamer or an achiever? Which do you spend the most time doing? Those who achieve must get outside of their comfort zone and doing this involves taking a risk. It involves taking action.
I'm reminded of a risk I took some years back involving a career move. Actually a huge career move. I had reached a place in my job where I was going to have to settle in for the long haul before any kind of advancement would allow me to achieve some inner success or I was going to have to act. In some ways I was like a snake ready to shed the skin and grow. Oh I had been dreaming of a larger income and I had these grandiose ideas of saving the world one soul at a time. However I had also made several good friends, enjoyed my co-workers and the customers I saw on a regular basis and was scared shitless to make a change. For me to make that change in my life involved a risk. Folks don't let me trick you into thinking it's always easy either. I gave a 2 week notice and eventually said my goodbyes hoping like hell this was not the biggest mistake I had ever made in life. To make a longer story shorter I'll just tell you it worked out and in a way that I could not have imagined. So well that after 6 yrs. I repeated the same type of career move changing jobs again and I tripled my salary. In other words I learned from the previous experience that taking a risk wasn't so bad after all. Just don't forget to think it through. Not all risk are healthy and not all risk have positive outcomes. I can assure you of this too. But that's another post on another day if I so choose to share the risk that led me to some pain and disappointments.
Life is about change, change creates growth and growth can be painful. Taking a risk involves making things happen instead of sitting back waiting for them to happen. Risk allows you to grow and discover new things about yourself and the world, to develop your strengths and talents. I read others' blogs and sometimes they seem so cheerful. Like they never had a care in the blogging world so to speak. I mean do these people ever have days when their like, "what in the hell am I doing this for?" Do they not ever get interrupted and get upset about anything? I have to tell you that I have found some of these to be great blogs. Blogs that I go back to just to see what they are going to do or say next. I've often wondered if what they write comes down like rain or flows like the Mississippi? Do they have days when it's time to take a risk and a leap of faith? Perhaps they research and are they experiencing the sense of taking a risk? Sure they are. Would you publish what they write? Would you share it with the whole world? I'm not sure I would. But I have learned that I'm also not sure I wouldn't. I enjoy taking risk. Especially when the results are positive. I don't always enjoy the painful side of growth however. These experiences both good and not so good are the experiences that I can reflect back on and gain the courage to again take a risk when I am in doubt. I want to promote courage, inner strength and determination. Blogging takes on all of these. I've found that in order to be successful I must have all three. And I must be motivated for without the motivation there is no success. Without setting goals and challenging ones self to reach those goals you will fail. And for me to fail in life in areas I know I can be happy in is unacceptable.
"In order to learn to live happily and free one must first learn to make sacrifices, and those sacrifices aren't always easy."
In her audiotape, "Instant Guts!" , Joan Gale Frank says, "Even though you can come up with a dozen good excuses for why you shouldn't take a risk, there's one great big reason why you should. And that is, until you do, your heart is going to hunger. If you don't take risks, you'll never feel quite complete. Right up until the day your story ends.
Another great read is a post by Blogging Bistro where Laura Christianson shares how some peoples reluctance at taking risk with blogging boils down to the following.
They jump into blogging without thinking through:
■ why they want to blog
■ who they hope to reach
■ how blogging will impact their schedule
■ how their blog will make a difference in the lives of time-strapped readers
If you’re wondering whether you should start blogging, take the time to do some strategic planning.
Here is an excerpt from a poem I found. It's author is unknown:
To go forward in the face of overwhelming odds is to risk failure
But to risk we must, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing is one who does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrows, but he cannot learn, feel, change, grow, or love.
Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave - he has forfeited his freedom.
Only a person who takes risks is FREE
taking risks day 1
taking risks day 2
