How Bad Do You Want the Life You Want?

 

1. Know your why.

Start by asking yourself, For the sake of what? Nothing worthwhile is accomplished with a guarantee of success. Risk is a toll life exacts en route to any meaningful endeavor. Finding the courage to take risks demands you be clear about why you are doing it in the first place.

We are wired to focus more on what we have to lose than what we might gain. Therefore, before you can find the courage to risk losing something, you have to be crystal clear about what it is you want to gain in the process. What are you willing to lay your reputation, pride, status or vulnerability on the line for? Only when your desire for something transcends your desire for safety can you rise above the fears hardwired into you to protect you from such dangers.

A big, inspiring why propelled Justine Flynn and her co-founders to launch their company, Thankyou, in 2008. They were straight out of college and had no idea what they were doing. Flynn told me she and her co-founders felt passionate about helping people in the developing world get access to clean drinking water, something most of us take for granted. It wasn’t that Flynn and her co-founders didn’t fear failing. It was that their desire to make a difference was stronger than the fear that they would fall short. Eight years later, there are nearly 200,000 people who drink clean water every day thanks to them.

2. Confront your fears.

Fear often gets a bad rap. Its sole purpose is to alert you to potential threats to your safety. But in today’s culture of fear, we can find ourselves living in its shadow, unable to distinguish those fears that are serving us from those that are stifling us. Psychologists have identified these four key mechanisms that undermine our ability to assess smart risks from safe ones.

1. We overestimate the size of the risk, making potential losses loom larger than gains.
2. We catastrophize and exaggerate the potential consequences.
3. We underestimate our ability to handle the risk.
4. We discount, downplay or deny the cost of inaction.

The result is people end up being overly cautious, unwilling to take the very risks needed to create more meaningful lives. When we shine a light on our fears and realize the actual cost of inaction, we loosen the grip fear has on our psyche. This improves our ability to accurately assess risk and discern the smartest path forward, even if it’s not the easiest or most comfortable.

Six weeks before her wedding day, my younger sister Anne, a doctor, called me to say she was having strong second thoughts about whether to marry her fiancé. Although she admired the man she was going to marry, she’d become increasingly uninspired by the idea of spending her life with him. When I asked her how she felt about ending the relationship and calling off the wedding, she said, “I can’t break it off. It would kill him. It would kill me, too.” Anne’s fear of the fallout from breaking off her engagement was understandable. But as I pointed out to her, just because it was an incredibly hard thing to do didn’t mean it wasn’t the right thing to do.

After much soul searching, Anne made the brave decision to break off her engagement. Although she said it was the hardest thing she ever had to do, it taught her that she was more courageous than she thought. That knowledge emboldened her to pursue her dream to join Doctors Without Borders. Nine months after calling off her wedding, she was managing a remote hospital in Darfur, Sudan, that served internally displaced Sudanese refugees. Since then, Anne has not only married the man of her dreams (and is set to have her third child with him), but she has done extraordinary work in public health around the globe.

Of course we aren’t all called to head off to war zones or launch social enterprises. But we are all called to make our mark on the world in some way. Before you read any further, ask yourself, What would I do if I were being truly courageous? Take a minute to close your eyes, breathe deeply and sit with the question. As you do, give your imagination permission to soar and open your heart to wherever it takes you. However dauntingly large or seemingly insignificant your vision is, just know that within you lies all of the resources you will ever need to make it a reality. One day, one hour, one daring act of courage at a time.

3. Trust your capabilities.

In October 2001, with three children under 4 (including an 8-week-old), I moved from Australia to Dallas with my husband, Andrew, who’d been offered a job. It was a difficult time, not only because of the heightened anxiety after 9/11, but because I was living 10,000 miles away from my family with little support.

Six months in, I fended off my mother’s guilt to take a few child-free days with my husband. Away from the disruption of young children, I did a visualization exercise, imagining the life I wanted in 10 years. I knew it would draw on my background in psychology and interest in Fortune 500 business, and align with my passion for helping people live more bravely. I envisioned myself forging a new career supporting people to live bigger lives and make their own mark on the world.

To my disbelief, what also appeared clear as day were the faces of four, not three, children. I recall slapping my face to reset the image. With my husband working long hours and regularly away for travel, I was already stretched just mothering three children. How could I pursue a new career and have a fourth child? But that image was clear, and the vision was compelling. In my heart I knew my dream life included nurturing a big family while also pursuing my calling outside of the home. As scared as I was of not having what it would take to create both, I also knew deep in my heart that if I didn’t at least try to have a fourth child, I would run the bigger risk of looking back with regret.

Just over a year later, our little Texan, Matthew Raymond, arrived. Now 14 years later, I am living my calling in ways I was unable to imagine in 2002. Although I’m juggling (and dropping) more balls than I could also have imagined back then, it’s only reinforced my belief that when we dare to pursue our boldest dreams, we can discover just how capable, creative and courageous we truly are. As my family (now with four teenagers) learned last year when we all climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, it is by stretching our limits that we can expand them.

source:success.com