"The ideas people choose to have about themselves largely determine the quality of the lives they lead. We can choose to believe in ourselves thus strive to risk, to persevere, and to achieve. Or we can choose to cling to security and mediocrity. We can choose to set no limits on ourselves to set high goals and dream big dreams. We can use those dreams to fuel our spirits with passion. Or we can become philosophers of the worst kind, inventing ways to rationalize our failures inventing excuses for mediocrity. We can fall in love with our own abilities and our own potential, then choose to maximize those abilities. Or we can decide that we have no special talents or abilities and try to be happy being safe and comfortable." Dr. Rotella - How Champions Think.
The words comfort and risk probably elicit an emotional response for you. We have been conditioned to seek comfort and to shun risk. I think of a nice couch and warm blanket vs uncertainty, ambiguity and fear. This is a survival mechanism hardwired into our DNA from the days when a branch snapping in the woods meant something hairy and toothy was about to turn us into dinner. If we upset the status quo or went against the group we risked being exiled and we couldn't fend off the wild by ourselves. We have been conditioned to seek security but we now live in the safest world man has every seen. Metaphorically there is nothing out there in the woods waiting to chow down on us and we don't live in a real life version of Survivor. Life and death are no longer at stake thus we are liberated to make decisions that are not limited by the highest cost.
So then what? If we are free to risk it all who could we be? Are your fears based on real actual consequences or ones downloaded into your DNA from a past no longer relevant?
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