Playing it too safe? How to 'reframe risk' to make better, braver decisions.

When making decisions, most people like to think they are pretty good at weighing up the pros and cons and choosing the smartest course of action. Unfortunately though, when it comes to assessing potential risks, we're often pretty lousy at it.

At the end of life, most people wish they'd been bolder and less cautious. Likewise, if you look back on your life now, odds are you can think of at least a few occasions in which you wished you spoken up sooner, been less reticent or more assertive in making changes.

By studying activity in the brain, neuro-researchers have discovered that we are innately wired toward caution, and away from situations that risk not just physical safety, but psychological comfort. As I wrote in my book, Stop Playing Safe, the primal emotion of fear drives us to be overly tentative - to stick with the path of greatest certainty, comfort and short term security, even at the expense of our longer-term happiness.

So whatever challenges, choices or changes you’re facing right now—and before you decide what you’ll do (or won’t do)—take into account these four ways that you’re wired to avoid risk.

1. We overestimate risk and focus more on potential loss, than potential gains

Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman found that when weighing up risk, potential losses tend to loom larger than potential gains. In fact our brains are twice as sensitive to potential loss as they are to potential gain.

That is, we tend to focus more on what might go wrong—what we might lose or sacrifice—than what might go right. Because our imaginations tend to magnify what we focus on, we often misjudge (and over-estimate) the likelihood of it occurring. Yet the reality is that the risk of something not working out is rarely as high as we estimate, and the odds of it working out in our favor (even if not exactly as we envisaged) are often far greater.

2. We exaggerate the consequences of risk. 

On the eve of my first book, Find Your Courage, being released, I woke up in the middle of the night with an image emblazoned in my mind's eye. It was a photo of me on the front page of the New York Times. Beneath it was the headline, in all caps: "WORLD'S WORST AUTHOR!" As ridiculously improbable as this would have been, it reflects the tendency of our imaginations to catastrophize and conjure up worst case scenarios. In reality, most of the nightmare outcomes we terrify ourselves with are unrealistic, if not entirely implausible. They also operate off the assumption that we'd sit idly by as our life went down the gurgler (Aussie for "off the rails").

In truth, if your undertaking started to derail, you'd quickly act to stem the downside, and you'd learn a heck of a lot from the experience. It's why Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert says that it's better to "err toward risk" as even risks that don't pay off will always provide a valuable lesson we can apply to be more successful in the future. On the flip side, when we do nothing and stay firmly in our safety zone, we deprive ourselves of opportunities to learn, grow and take even smarter decisions in the future. It aligns with what Richard Branson shared with me on Necker Island:

"The more mistakes you are willing to risk, the more success you'll ultimately achieve."

3. We underestimate our ability to handle the consequences of risk. 

Ever been confronted with a challenge that you hadn't anticipated and you found within you more strength, resourcefulness and courage than you ever thought you had? Such experiences can be extraordinarily empowering on multiple levels.

So consider where you may currently be underestimating your ability to take on bigger challenges. Too often we buy into a story that we're not confident enough or strong enough or 'fill-in-the-blank' enough and let our self-doubt get the better of us. The result is that we often avoid pursuing bigger challenges or opportunities because we don’t sufficiently trust our ability to handle them. As William James, the founding father of modern psychology once said, the singular biggest reason people fail to fulfill their potential is that they lack faith in themselves. While having too much self-belief and an inflated sense of our competence is outright dangerous, most of us have too little (particularly women... which is why I run my Live Brave Women's Weekends!)

4. We downplay the cost of inaction. 

It's easy to imagine yourself this time tomorrow or next week if you try something today and you fail, fall short or get rejected. Ouch. It's much harder to step into the shoes of your future-self and ask yourself how you will feel ten years from now if you continue opting for the safe and familiar predictability of the status quo.

Professor Philip Bobbitt coined the term Parmenides Fallacy to explain the human tendency to discount or deny the cost of inaction. We’re very good at justifying to ourselves why the safest (no action) course is the smartest: “My (job, relationship, career path) really isn’t so bad," clinging onto the misguided hope that "things will just sort themselves out". 

Inaction grows increasingly expensive.

In reality, situations that are not working well now rarely just "sort themselves out". More often they just grow gradually worse. It's why putting off action generally exacts an increasingly steep and hidden toll on our happiness and wellbeing that most of us don't know to face.

Five Questions To Help You Make Braver Decisions

So now you know you're wired to be cautious, how can you overcome your innate risk aversion to risk and discern smart risks from foolish ones? Take a moment to watch this video I recorded below to get you thinking about the importance of being braver in your work and life, and then reflect on these five questions below as though your life is depending on it (perhaps it is).

1. Where am focusing more on what I have to lose than on what I have to gain?
2. How might I be underestimating my ability and selling myself short?
3. If I stick with my current path, how will I feel one or five years from now? (Be brutally honest!)
4. What is the larger risk I am unconsciously taking if I chose not to take any risk in the short term? Is it worth it?
5. If I decided not to let fear of failure call the shots, what action would I take?

Your answers may not be pointing you toward an easier more comfortable future (at least not in the short term!), but they are most certainly pointing you toward a more rewarding one - one that opens up new doors of opportunity, develops your strengths, expands your impact feeds your spirit, and enriches your experience of life itself.

Might you experience setbacks or make the odd miss-step? Of course. No worthwhile endeavor has ever been achieved without them.

As anyone in the twilight of their life will tell you - fear regret more than you fear failure. Whatever answers came up for you above, they will be pointing you in the direction of what you already know you need to do - to trust yourself more, embrace discomfort and take a brave step toward whatever future vision lights you up most... however scary.

Margie Warrell is a bestselling author, speaker & host of the Live Brave Podcast. Margie will be running her Live Brave Women's Weekend in Asia (May 3-5) and the USA (Oct 25-27) in 2019. Learn more at www.LiveBraveWeekend.com.

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