Giving fear a voice: Thoughts on risk-taking

• Posted on August 7, 2018
• by Ellsamwise King
• Comment

The month of August is here way sooner than I expected it to be and this would be a good time for an introspection; to take a look back at the past months, find out all the split ends and map a way out of the cracks for myself.

I’ve lived these past months learning a tough lesson about risk-taking and readjusting my mind to the reality that doors don’t always stay open long enough for me to get ready before walking right through them.

I’ve always been the kind to wait until I was ready; and I’ve successfully convinced myself that until every box on the list is checked, I can’t take a single step forward towards achieving anything.

Half the time, I’m quick to blame my inadequacy, uncertainty and lack of preparation. But at the root of this, at the other side of feeling incapable of getting a task done is the fear of taking risks and as hard as it is to admit how often we escape from this subject, it doesn’t make it any less relevant.

We have become a people so fixated on the chance of failure that we are unwilling to build the self-efficacy required to get us where we need to be. We can only gain a deep appreciation of what it means to accomplish goals when we begin to recognize that failure isn’t fatal but a step in the process of succeeding.

Success is not the absence of failure; it’s the persistence through failure- Aisha Tyler

Risk-taking forces us to be resourceful than we would push ourselves to be. When a challenge is thrown down at us, we’re lunged into talent maximization and solution-oriented approaches. We fight. We try all the locks until one clicks open. We never give up until we find what we’re looking for.

There’s the need to confront the truth of how often we give fear a voice; silencing our ability to take big (sometimes terrifying) steps. Feel the fear and do it any way. There is so much potential inside of us that may stay untapped should we fail to step out of our comfort zones and dare to reach height we could never dream of.

If we’re waiting until we’re fully ready, we might never get anything done. There is no such thing as being fully ready, having everything sorted out first. The big moments of triumph happen between the little steps- amidst all doubt and fear- and it is up to us to reclaim the power and place it where it belongs- inside of us.

By: Tryphena Lizzert Yeboah