The Benefits of Taking Risks

When you take risks in your life, you enhance your confidence, build new skills,
and get more out of life. Here is the thing; taking risks does not mean jumping off
a cliff in the dark blindfolded without knowing what�s below.

Risk-taking in your life might be something as simple as speaking up during your

morning meetings, telling your spouse to treat you better, or letting a friend know
they�ve crossed the line by standing up for yourself. The awesome thing is that the
benefits of taking risks often totally outweigh the risks if you do your due
diligence.

Learn New Skills

There is always something to learn. Everyone on this earth can benefit from more
learning. When you take the risk, you end up learning. Even if you fail by your own
standards, you will learn something new anyway.

For example, if you want to become better at public speaking and more comfortable
in front of an audience, you might choose to take a stand-up comic class or course
to help you not take yourself so seriously - while also learning to be comfortable
in front of others.

Overcome Fear

When you take more risks, your mind and body get used to dealing with the feelings
often associated with fear. You can learn to turn those fear feelings into
something else. Because remember, most of the time fear is not real in modern
society. If you�re making business choices that don�t involve life and death, there
is usually no logical reason to be fearful.

When you fear something that is holding you back, such as public speaking or
appearing on recorded digital video, this is an irrational fear that you can
overcome by doing it. Start small; make some videos that have images and a
voiceover first. Offer to do introductions at an upcoming event to help you get
used to talking in front of people.

Break Through Perceived Limits

Most of us have limits that have been manufactured for us throughout our lives that
have nothing to do with reality. Maybe someone told you when you were in 8th grade
you were terrible at math. Or for some reason, you think you are not naturally
"good" at something. This is a limit that may not even exist.

When you accept some risk, you can overcome and blow past these limits because they
are erroneous. Who told you that you can�t? If you can figure that out and then
test the assumption by taking a class or doing "it" anyway, the experience of doing
it will blow up the limitation for you.

Uncover More Opportunity

The more risks you take, the more opportunities that will come your way. There is a
reason for the saying, "High risk brings high reward." It�s because it�s mostly
true. It�s true when you do your research and do the work you need to do to test an
idea first. You see, the risk you need to take isn�t even that risky. The truth is,
half the issue is showing up.

For example, if you take that speaking opportunity to talk for ten minutes to that
women�s group even though you are terrified, what will this lead to? Will someone
in that group hire you? Will it lead to more speaking opportunities? You may not
even realize what the opportunity is right away, but it will lead to something -
even if you�re not perfect.

Boost Your Self-Confidence

Nothing boosts self-confidence like success. When you do more, you have more
opportunities to experience success. Yes, when you take more risks, you will also
experience more failure. But if you can address failure the way it should be
addressed, which is as part of life, it isn�t as tragic.

More than likely, you�re going to get more success taking more risk, which will
make you feel more confident. If you�re doing your due diligence for every
decision, you make it more likely that you�ll experience something better than bad.

As you discover the benefits of risk-taking, you�ll simply open more doors,
experience more success, and become more courageous. After all, experience - more
than anything else - is what helps you overcome fear. The only way to overcome fear
is to do things that put your fear in place and prove it wrong.