It’s an all too familiar feeling for most people. You find yourself in a situation where you want to do something, you want to take the proverbial shot, but you don’t. You entertain the thought for a brief moment but rationalize it away or succumb to fear.
And when it starts happening often enough, it locks itself into a habit.
A habit of fearing change.
And in a world where change is a rock solid guarantee, something unavoidable for every person on the planet, we really aren’t helping ourselves learn how to deal with it if we constantly fear it.
This article is going to cover how you can deal with the fear that comes with the change that results from taking that shot, of knowing what to do when you’re in that situation – that moment of big decision where you ask yourself – should you or should you not take the shot?
But first, let’s backtrack a little bit.
It’s a widely known fact that people are comfortable with familiarity. It’s easy for us to hang out with the same people, eat the same food, do the same things on the weekends, and this routine can sometimes hurt us when it comes to dealing with the things that can result in big changes in our lives so the first step to dealing with all this seems pretty obvious:
It’s to start by taking a shot at the little things.
The easiest example to illustrate all this is by seeing the thought process of ordering at a restaurant. I’m sure you know someone in your social circle who always orders “safe”; safe in the sense that they order what they already know.
The rationale behind this is that if they order something different, something new, they might not like it and feel as if they’ve wasted their money. It slips their mind that the exact opposite can happen too, that they can order something new and different and might even like it.
But if you take a closer look at this simple decision making process, you’ll see a hidden association being made here – that change is probably something that will be bad.
And obviously, if we feel this way about something as small as ordering at a restaurant, it can influence and carry over to the big things in our lives.
Now obviously I’m not saying that if a person always orders something that they already know at a restaurant, that they fear change. They might just be in the mood for what they know. I’m just using that as an example to point out how easy it is to not deal with change, to just always go with what you’re familiar with.
So just for kicks, try ordering the most exotic drink and dish the next time you go out to eat and see what happens. You might like it. You might not.
The point is to realize that change can be great and that it can’t as well. It won’t always be bad or good but you’ll never know if you don’t try.
And more importantly, what this will do is get you comfortable with the results of the decisions you make that take you out of your comfort zone.
Instead of always fearing the outcome, you’ll become indifferent to the outcomes in due time. You’ll just see them for what they are without any negative emotions involved.
Just results.
Results you can then interpret to however which way you feel would work best for you.
As you start taking shots at these smaller things, you can gradually work your way up to taking shots at slightly bigger things, whether it’s volunteering to work on that new project at your job, meeting new people, going to different places, reading different books, expanding your horizons, in essence, casting a bigger fishing net in your life.
When you do this, you’ll start to get a clearer sense of yourself – your likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses, etc., and opportunities will start to present themselves to where you can learn even more about yourself and from other people, as well as about other people in general.
You begin to understand yourself better, you learn more about yourself, you become more confident in knowing which areas you can handle and which you can’t, what you like to do and don’t like to do, so when the time comes for you to make that big decision, where you ponder whether or not to go take the shot, you’ll be prepared to make it.
It’s not so much as just blindly taking a shot when the opportunity presents itself, but taking an educated one based on careful preparation and self discovery on your own part.
You don’t always have to take the shot.
It’s a matter of learning how to “filter” to see which shots you think would be best taken by you.
For example, let’s say you’ve been given a job opportunity that involves managing people on a daily basis.
You like your job as it is right now. It’s fine. It pays well, the hours are great, the benefits are superb and the co-workers and managers are wonderful.
But the new job opportunity pays more and it has other perks and benefits. And the hours are slightly longer. And the job description carries more responsibility and duties that you’ve never done before.
Do you take the shot and go for it?
Or do you decline?
Let’s say you did decide to take the shot and after a while of doing it, figure out that you absolutely hate managing people. It doesn’t fit you at all and gives you a lot more stress than you realized – too much drama, too much interpersonal conflict, too many problems on your plate.
But you find yourself stuck in the sense that you want to quit, but you can’t get your old job back, which puts you in a very unpleasant situation.
Would making the decision on whether or not to take the shot be easier had you taken some “little” shots earlier that showed to you that managing people isn’t really something you like doing and that it’s something you’re not very good at either?
It obviously would’ve made the decision much easier had you known all that information about yourself.
So it’s not a matter of refusing to take a shot out of fear of change.
Knowing when to take a shot is just a matter of knowing that when the shot comes, that you’re confident you can make the right decision on whether or not to take it based on your previous experiences of taking shots on the little things that taught you a lot about yourself and should you chose to take it, feel confident enough that you’re more than capable of following through on it.
