January 1, 2024 • 32 mins
Welcome to 2024! With each new year on the podcast, we set a new theme or intention for the next 12 months. This year our theme is RISK, embracing our fear of change or making a mistake and embracing risk in all its forms! We discuss how we can get a better idea of what we want for our future, discover our purpose, what type of risks will get us there, the difference between bounded and unbounded risk and why risks not always have to be impulsive or spontaneous. Listen now and welcome to your year for taking risks!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
(00:27):
Welcome back to the podcast. Happy New Year, Welcome to
twenty twenty four. Welcome to a new year of the podcast.
Thank you for joining me, Thanks for being here. I'm
currently coming to you from perhaps the most beautiful place
in the world. I'm in Japan, in Osaka, ringing in
(00:48):
the new year with my family, my friends, my partner. Honestly,
it felt like such a well deserved little break after
how crazy last year was for me. We've been eating
ramen and fried chicken every day, sleeping in, drinking a
lot of beer, playing cards. I just feel so blessed,
(01:09):
and I know that sounds so cheesy, but I think
this time for me has been really appreciating how much
I have to be grateful for. Moving into the new year,
there were some significant life changes over the past twelve months,
and of course I was just reflecting back on where
(01:31):
I was at this time at the beginning of twenty
twenty three. Looking back specifically at my old journal entries
from that time, and a lot of what I remember
is this like distinct fear and anxiety. I had absolutely
no idea what would happen. I was still working my
corporate job, I was struggling. After my first year living
in Sydney, was just like very heartbroken, and I'll be honest,
(01:54):
feeling really aimless and lost. Nothing really seemed to have
direction or purpose, and I just really couldn't have imagined
that this much would have changed, that my entire life
would be completely different a year later. Coming into twenty
twenty four, the new year is obviously such a pivotal
time for so many of us to reflect on the past,
(02:15):
to have that moment of introspection for how far we've come,
but also perhaps how much further we would like to go.
It feels so significant because it is this tangible new
beginning for us, even though you know time year's days,
there's such an arbitrary concept. I feel like just the
psychological kind of narrative around a new year leaves us
(02:36):
with a lot of expectations, a lot of big ambitions.
And it's really interesting because I think this concept of
a fresh start, that a new year brings has been
acknowledged by cultures and societies for thousands of years. The
Babylonians actually used to celebrate the new year and make
new year's resolutions or like pledges to the gods and
(02:59):
like promises that they would fulfill in order to ensure
their crops were successful, that their children were healthy, to
prevent famine. And this has been seen in just like
so many cultures, just like reverence around the beginning of
a new chapter. In like ancient Rome, they used to
celebrate the God of new beginnings and transitions around this time.
(03:20):
There's this really like rich history here that points to
the kind of the universal significance that a new year brings.
And this is what we're going.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
To discuss today, because this is the time of year
four reflecting deeply on what we want for our lives.
When we enter into a new year, we need to
set our intentions, maybe in the form of new year's resolutions,
but I actually think more powerful is setting our motives,
(03:51):
redefining what we see as our purpose, what can we
do in this new year, so that this time when
we're next year, when entering twenty twenty five, we can
kind of sit back and say, I made those changes.
I invested in the right people, I invested in myself,
in the right path, the right decisions. I took the
(04:13):
risks that I needed to take for me. Each year
seems to have a theme. Last year the theme was
very much discovery. And this year is the year for
taking risks. It is our year for kind of embracing fear,
for embracing the unknown, not being afraid of the future,
(04:35):
recognizing that we are in control. We are going to
take accountability for creating our dream life. I think risk
plays such an important role in this realization because as
we get older, it becomes so much easier to just
do what is convenient and easy, just take the path
(04:56):
laid out in front of us. We become a lot
less in our own decision making, and I think, to
be honest, we just get used to being comfortable and
not needing much else. But true growth and true happiness
comes when we really push beyond what is comfortable, beyond
what feels safe, to a place of expansion. Also, I
(05:20):
say this a lot, but what is easy isn't always
what is best. It's not necessarily going to get us
to a fulfilled place. I believe so firmly in challenging
what you expect your life to be, the kind of
blueprint that society imposes on us, and just betting on
yourself for a little bit, just taking a chance on
(05:41):
your dreams, your grand ideas. And that's really I think
what the focus of twenty twenty four is going to
be for me, and I hope it's the focus for
you as well. I want to give you an example
of how risk has really kind of changed my life.
For the longest time, I was convinced that in order
to be happy, I really needed to pursue a very
(06:04):
secure career, and I needed to push myself to move
up the corporate ladder, that the financial security that that
would bring would be fundamental to my peace of mind
and my future. And last year, after months months of
anxiety and worry, I think I realized that my notions
(06:25):
and ideas about what would make me happy were incorrect
because I was doing all the things that I thought
was going to lead to satisfaction and fulfillment and the
sense of security, and I was miserable. I was really miserable,
and so I took the risk to quit my job
to do what really truly made me feel fulfilled and
(06:46):
kind of aligned with my reason for being on this planet.
It wasn't without stress. In fact, it was probably more
stressful than when i'd been at my corporate job, especially
when it came to financial stability and being able to
pay my rent and my bills. But I I think
I knew that if I didn't do this, if I
didn't take the leap, each year, each month that passed,
(07:06):
it would just become harder for me to make that decision,
and I would regret it. I would be somewhat haunted
by the what if of the decisions that I didn't make.
So I think there's this conundrum that we all face
when we think about creating our dream life, when we
think about the things that we really want to do,
there is this inherent choice, this inherent kind of equation
(07:29):
that we need to weigh up. Do I stay where
I am and remain safe and sure of my surroundings
but possibly regret my decisions later in life or kind
of mourn the life I could have lived. Or do
I choose to be brave? Do I choose to see
what happens? Maybe I'm rewarded for my risk, but if
(07:50):
I fail at least I end up back in the
same place I was before with the knowledge that I tried.
That is a really common, I think meant conundrum that
we go through is we have these two paths, and
risk obviously requires giving up something. Risk requires maybe giving
(08:11):
up a previous dream that you've outgrown, giving up those
parts of your life that you are comfortable with, giving
up financial stability, giving up friends, giving up relationships. But
there are so many benefits and so many rewards that
come from that. And I think that there are so
many areas in life that we can choose to take risks.
We can go back to school, we can take a
(08:32):
year off to go solo traveling, we can move to
a new city, start a new business, a side hustle,
a hobby, whatever it may be. And we can also
choose to take a risk around being more honest with
people about how we feel, asking people out, dating more,
introducing yourself to strangers, going to things alone, initiating difficult conversations. Obviously,
(08:55):
this is not a full list of the risks that
I consider important, but these are the risks that are
especially in our twenties, I think we kind of have
a duty to take. You are never going to be
this free or this inhibited again. Mistakes are also an
in built part of this decade. They are in many
ways expected from us. So people give you a lot
(09:17):
more of what I would call a pass. If you
are to make the wrong decision, at least you gave
it a go. A lot of people cannot say that.
A lot of people live with the mistake of not
taking a chance on themselves for their entire lives. I
want to talk about one of my favorite studies of
all time here. There was this study that examined the
(09:40):
power and kind of the psychology of regret and the
impact of the decisions that people didn't make on their
psyche in the future. What they found is that you
are more likely to regret a decision that you didn't
make versus one that you did. Across thousands of people,
(10:00):
there were so many of them that expressed more regret
for the risks that they didn't take compared to the
ones that they did. Actually, twenty four percent of participants
regretted the things that they did do and seventy six
regretted the things that they didn't do. So I think
this study is important when we consider how we're going
(10:21):
to approach risk taking in the new year, because it
highlights the dangers of inaction, and not even just in action,
but a denial of your dreams, a denial of that
urge of what you know deeply is going to make
you happy. It is really such a tragedy to imagine
yourself on your deathbed, realizing that there is nothing you
(10:44):
can do to undo the past, but wishing that you
had been brave when it counted. And I think being
brave when it counted is something that we don't always
understand or recognize until it's in hindsight. We often don't
realize the opportunities that we have because they are so
scary to us until it's too late. And I really
(11:07):
want to encourage you to be open to what might
be coming to you in this new year that you
might discredit because it is too scary that you might
immediately say no to. Regardless of this understanding of the
benefit of risk, even if we appreciate that this could
be our future, sometimes we experience a lot of cognitive
(11:28):
dissonance around the many choices that we need to make
in our twenties. So cognitive dissonance in psychology refers to
this kind of mental discomfort experienced when we hold two
contradictory beliefs or ideas or values. I think that really
applies to the dreams that we have. So we might
see ourselves in one way as someone who was really
(11:50):
motivated by corporate success. We really want to raise a family,
we really want to perhaps pursue a quite traditional life.
That is one belief that you have about yourself. But
another belief is that you want to be a bit
of a vagabound, that you are someone who is really independent,
really free spirited. You want to start your own business,
(12:11):
you want to travel, and you kind of have these
two choices right and it feels like in this moment
you have to make a decision. You have to make
a decision right now, and making a decision requires you
to give up on one of those paths. But you
have to think about the timing of your dreams in
this moment. I have this saying that you can be
(12:33):
everything that you want to be, but you can't be
at all at once. When we think about the things
that we want from our lives, we have to consider
what can be postponed, what actually may be better to
hold off on, whereas what is best for you right now?
When would it be the best time to do these things?
(12:53):
I think when it comes to a lot of those
adventurous dreams that particularly people in our of twenties really harbor,
time to do those things is right now. It is
literally right now. Most of us do not have children,
we do not have mortgages, we have exited our education pipeline.
We've either graduated high school or university. And it's in
(13:16):
those moments of fear and kind of like the question
of what am I going to do with my life
from here on out that we need to be adventuring
and discovering and willing to branch out. It's not to
say that you can never do these things once you're
past a certain age, but simply that you have to
(13:36):
be able to make hard calls about what you want
now that may mean that you are going to delay
some of the other things in your life till later. Still,
in those moments, I do think fear is our biggest enemy.
The saying always goes fear is the killer of dreams
that I don't think that has ever been more true
than when it comes to dreams that require risk, Because
(13:57):
the essential premise of risk is that the outcome is unknown.
And it is the fact that the outcome is unknown
that makes it so scary, but also that makes it
so exciting exciting because yeah, it could grow terribly, but
also it could go incredibly well. You have no expectations,
(14:18):
you have no idea of what's going to come next,
and that just leaves so much room for surprises and
room for excitement, and room for the unexpected. What I
really want to discuss, though, is some of the things
that kind of hold us back, some of the fears
that keep us in a place of comfort, keep us
(14:39):
in a place of stability, and how we're going to
push back against that anxiety or perhaps that passivity this year,
how we're going to embrace risk in all its forms,
from small to big in twenty twenty four. So all
of that and more. After this short break, I was
(15:02):
reading this amazing book a while ago called Big Magic
by Elizabeth Gilbert. You might know her. She is the
author of that very famous book that came out a
few years ago called Eat, Pray, Love, and she also
has possibly one of the best TED talks of all time.
It's titled Your Elusive Creative Genius, which quite frankly I
(15:24):
think about at least once a week. I watch it always.
But in her book Big Magic, what she really focuses
on is the mental barriers that hold us back from
realizing our best lives, because that's what fear really is.
It's all about what's mental. It's all about our thoughts.
It's all about how we interpret a situation rather than
(15:46):
what it actually is. And I think it's this way
of thinking, thinking from a place of fear, that keeps
us buying into this feeling that we are small or
not capable of doing what we've dreamed of. You are
afraid of making a mistake. You're afraid that you have
no talent. You're afraid that it will take too much
(16:07):
time to get to where you want to be. But
the thing is that that time is going to pass anyways,
either you did something with it or you didn't. You're
afraid of it not working out perfectly. That's especially the
case for perfectionists, overachievers, people who have been taught to
do things the right way. You are afraid of disappointing
others or yourself. You're afraid that your dreams are embarrassing
(16:30):
just because other people don't understand them. You're afraid that
you don't have the right background, the right degree, the
right education, that so many people have done it before you,
that your dreams aren't special. You're afraid of being too late,
and trust me, you are never too late. If you
are still breathing. You're afraid because something went well in
(16:51):
your life once, so nothing can possibly go right again.
This is a huge cognitive distortion that a lot of
us have, as if good things in life unlike it
exists in a bank account, and we've withdrawn too much
of the money, and so all of the good things
in life, all of our I guess our balance of
(17:12):
good things has been depleted. Life doesn't work that way.
And I think the other thing that we're very afraid
of is that you're going to give up things in
your current life that you love and you won't be
able to get them back. That in itself is a
massive barrier for so many of us, a barrier to
pursuing a life that it might actually be better for us.
(17:32):
But like we said before, it's going to require sacrifice.
Here is the important thing to remember. Fear is not
real until it is realized. The easiest way for a
fear to never be realized is to never do anything
risky that will allow you to grow. You can stay
(17:53):
in your safe bubble your entire life and never have
to encounter any of those worries being realized. But at
the end of your life, you're going to have to
face an even bigger fear, the one that you let
your life pass you by and you never did anything
about it. You never did anything that was going to
(18:14):
potentially make you happier. And with that comes a lot
of bitterness around what could have been. What if my
life had been different at this moment, and now there's
nothing I can do about it. I worry about that
all the time. It's that perspective of future me that
really I think keeps me in a place of taking
chances on myself. Of course, I think that doesn't mean
(18:35):
that you should take every risk that comes across your plate,
that you should do anything that you desire or act
on every whim. There are obviously some risks that are
more calculated, more practical, more meaningful than others, and then
there are some that are just plain ridiculous. You know,
you're not going to go and jump out of a
(18:56):
plane and you've never done it before, Just because you're
ready to embrace risk like that is not a smart risk,
that is not one that is practical. But there are
some risks that we call bounded. Bounded risks are amazing.
The idea is that there are these types of risks
that have limited downsides but unbounded upsides. Essentially, what that
(19:18):
means is that although there are limited costs incurred, and
yes there will be some cost time, money, missed opportunities
to get this idea off the ground, the benefit is
that there is no limit to the benefit. These are
the risks that you should be taking. I think about
them especially in terms of this podcast right or like
(19:40):
content creation. So when I began this podcast, obviously I
had to invest some time into buying a microphone and
setting up a platform and creating episodes. But what I've
realized now is that there was an unlimited benefit from
being able to do something that I loved and engage
with people and share and convert with people who really
(20:02):
shared my passions. And then there are these risks that
are called unbounded. These are not so great. There's other
risks that we should avoid. So actually they're pretty terrible
because these risks mean that you could lose everything. So
compared to bounded risks, in which you can kind of
(20:22):
control how much you lose, with unbounded risks, there is
no limit to what you will have to give up,
and so whilst the payoff might be potentially unlimited, it
means that you're probably going to lose something pretty valuable
in order to get there. Jumping out of a plane,
that's a big one. If you've never skydive before, there
(20:43):
is no limit to how much you could potentially lose
in this situation, the limit being that you could lose
your life, and the payoff is actually not really worth
it right. Another one is like choosing to burn all
your bridges at your previous workplace or with all your
friends because it's going to leave you unmoored and allow
you to make more friends. That is not a good risk.
(21:06):
That is not a good risk before you lose a
lot more than you seek to gain. So when we
think about risks from this perspective, from kind of a
cost benefit analysis kind of perspective, we really need to
consider whether the decisions we're going to make are going
to lead to a benefit that's going to outweigh the
(21:26):
initial costs. It's important to be a little bit rational
when we think about the risks that we want to
take in our twenties, because although risk equalsphere, it does
not equal complete abandonment of everything you love and care about.
I really do believe once again that the most amazing
growth will come out of the periods of greatest discomfort,
(21:50):
where we really push ourselves and explore what's out there.
But that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be
silly about it, or you have to completely abandon or logic.
Taking risk still requires judgment, and yes there are people
who are more likely to take risks. That that doesn't
necessarily mean that you should be doing things that you
(22:11):
know aren't going to make you happy or aren't actually
aligned just because you want to be free, just because
you want to be uninhibited, just because you want to
see what happens. I think that brings me to another
important point. Risks don't have to be inherently spontaneous to
be risky. They can also be planned. I think we
often think about risks as being these things that are
(22:31):
very impulsive that just kind of come to mind and
we have to see them through. But you can take
your time, you can be prepared. You can talk it
through with family and friends, but the most important thing
in that moment is to make sure that your preparation
is not actually just an unconscious form of avoidance. You
are never going to feel fully ready for anything. Ever,
(22:52):
there will always be some doubt, there will always be
something that you cannot account for. And often when we
owe a plan and overthink that is really just an
unconscious way of us choosing to avoid fear where we
get stuck in this loop of being, of being like
if I just know more, if I'm just if I
have a few more days to prepare a few more months,
(23:14):
the outcome is going to be better. That is not
always the case. Things turn out how they're going to
turn out, regardless of how much planning you put into it.
So I think there are ways that we can become
more familiar or comfortable with the idea of risk. Firstly,
think about small risks you can take to prepare yourself
(23:35):
for a bigger risk you know is going to come
in your future. So, for example, if you want to
go traveling or move to a new country for a
year two years, take time to visit that country first,
just to make sure that it's actually what you like,
so you don't get over there and then realize that
this was a huge mistake and you want to fly
back home immediately. If you want to quit your job,
(23:58):
go to a few networking events. Start your side hustle
whilst you're still working to get a feel for it.
Prepare yourself for risk. Don't deny yourself of the risk,
but implement it in your daily life or aspects of
it in your daily life. Before you take the full
leap with any risk that involves giving up work, giving
up opportunities, giving up education, giving up jobs, take a
(24:21):
solid look at your finances before you choose to do that.
Like I said before, sometimes you do have to be
practical even if you're going to be risky. I did
this at the start of last year, and it was
really important to understand what the next few months of
my life were all years even we're going to look like.
(24:44):
So I didn't kind of just step off the deep
end and there were suddenly not just so many unknowns,
but so many ways that I could have been prepared mentally, financially, emotionally,
and wasn't. I also think, instead of thinking about risk
as these big decisions, we need to make that will
forever all to our lives. Think about them as value
(25:05):
realignment risks are a way for you to shift your
life back in the direction that aligns with how you
see yourself, with what you value from life, with what
you want from your future. And maybe you've just become
really detached from that in the past a year or two.
(25:25):
Perhaps you see yourself as a creative someone who has
like a real true fire in their belly for producing
work that really moves people from expressing their imagination. But
at the moment you've been really caught up in finishing
your business degree that you haven't made time to pursue
those parts of you. Maybe the risk you need to
(25:46):
take then is to move out of your comfort zone
and pursue this more deeply by carving out time to
do it, by setting yourself long term goals in which
you're going to realign how you're living your life with
how you wish you were living your life. Maybe you
also value being really adventurous and a bit of a nomad,
but you perhaps felt a little bit stuck post COVID
(26:09):
you feel the need to work full time to make
money for your dreams. The risk you need to take
is to just get back out there. Normally, when we are,
like I said, overplanning, over preparing, what we're really fearing
in those moments is not being unprepared, it's being uncomfortable.
(26:30):
So you kind of have to get comfortable with being
uncomfortable and kind of say, you know, fuck it, this
is actually what I want from my life, even if
it's difficult at times, even if people don't understand it.
I'm at this point where I can ever choose to
deny myself that dream or that vision for my life,
or I can choose to embrace it. Risks are really
not just a catalyst for change, but a catalyst for
(26:55):
realigning your true self with your actual self, making yourself
off the path that everyone else wants you to live
and back onto the path that you want to live.
So I want to talk about some of the risks
that I'm gonna take this year to finish it off.
I really want to solo travel. I used to be
(27:16):
completely terrified of planes, and it meant that when everyone
else around me was taking those times to do their
Europe trips or their Southeast Asia trips, I was kind
of stuck at home because I was too scared to
embark on this journey, mainly just like the first fourteen
hours of the journey on the plane, So I think
that I regret not having those experiences that a lot
(27:40):
of my friends have been able to have. So I
really want to solo travel this year. I really want
to get into a position where I can live alone
and force myself to make that decision when the time comes,
rather than just reverting to living with friends or living
with a partner. I think that I really want that
(28:01):
space to know myself even though I'm scared of being lonely,
and I really want to set myself a really big
athletic goal that might not sound like a risk for
a lot of people, but I think my fear has
always been of failing or embarrassing myself, of not meeting
people's expectations for what someone who participates in these activities
(28:25):
looks like, not being fit enough to do it or
to fit in, and that's really kept me and helped
me back from participating in activities that I think I
otherwise would have really loved and would have made a
lot of friends from. That's what I want to do
this year. I want to challenge myself to not be
constantly worrying about what other people think about me and
my behaviors and my actions, and just do it. Anyways,
(28:47):
one final reminder before we wrap up this episode. You
have a responsibility to yourself to actually just do things,
to make decisions that might leave you feeling temporarily a
little bit out of place, but will significantly change your life,
(29:08):
will set you on a new course. No one is
going to come and suddenly make your life amazing for
you. You are the only one that can do that. And
maybe not everyone will understand your motivations. Maybe you don't
even know what risk would look like for you in
this year. It doesn't matter, though, because in this life
(29:28):
you can choose to be comfortable or you can choose
to grow. I know I've said it so many times
throughout this but I do think that we need the
reminder that when we buy into fear, we also buy
into dissatisfaction and we buy into regret and that's not
something that I think we want to live with. And
if you're not quite sure what it means to you
to take a risk, what you would take a risk towards,
(29:52):
leave yourself open to opportunity. And when I say leave
yourself open to opportunity. What that really means is that
be prepared to say yes to things in the moment,
be prepared to just be open to the idea that
your expectations for what you wanted your life to look
(30:12):
like might change and might not be the same. And
also put yourself in situations where you can be challenged.
Go and try new things, interact with new types of people,
Look for new jobs that you might be interested in,
even if you're not even going to apply for them.
You know, watch travel blogs of people doing really cool things.
(30:34):
Think about the things that you loved maybe in childhood,
the dreams you had in childhood that you've kind of neglected,
that you've forgotten about. It's a really good way to,
I think, really tune into what you want from your
life that you've maybe neglected. So I want to say officially,
welcome to your year for taking risks in whatever capacity
(30:57):
you choose to do that. Welcome. I'm so excited to
hear from you about what are the risks you are
going to take in twenty twenty four. What are the
things that you are going to realize or at least
just explore this year. How are you going to push
past your fear and your anxiety to maybe discover something
(31:19):
about yourself that you never knew. I'm really excited to
see what that means, not just for me, but for
all of you, my lovely listeners. I'm so excited for
this year. It's just crazy how fast time is going.
I'm not going to think about it too much. I
feel like that will lead me into such an existential spiral.
But I also just want to say thank you so
(31:40):
much for your support in twenty twenty three. My entire
life truly did change, and that would not have been
possible without you, every single one of you, who listens
every single week, who supports me in silent ways, who
shares episodes with friends. It's just mind blowing that I
(32:01):
have this community, and every day I'm just so grateful
for it. I'm so grateful for it. I really don't
have the words, so I guess I'll just say one
more time, thank you so much, and hopefully I will
see more of you this year. I will see more
of you in twenty twenty four. If you enjoyed this episode,
please feel free to leave a five star review on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you are listening right now. Share
(32:25):
it with a friend if this is what they need
to hear. Make sure you're following for all of our
new episodes this year, and we will be back next
week with another episode. Happy New Year.
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
(00:27):
Welcome back to the podcast. Happy New Year, Welcome to
twenty twenty four. Welcome to a new year of the podcast.
Thank you for joining me, Thanks for being here. I'm
currently coming to you from perhaps the most beautiful place
in the world. I'm in Japan, in Osaka, ringing in
(00:48):
the new year with my family, my friends, my partner. Honestly,
it felt like such a well deserved little break after
how crazy last year was for me. We've been eating
ramen and fried chicken every day, sleeping in, drinking a
lot of beer, playing cards. I just feel so blessed,
(01:09):
and I know that sounds so cheesy, but I think
this time for me has been really appreciating how much
I have to be grateful for. Moving into the new year,
there were some significant life changes over the past twelve months,
and of course I was just reflecting back on where
(01:31):
I was at this time at the beginning of twenty
twenty three. Looking back specifically at my old journal entries
from that time, and a lot of what I remember
is this like distinct fear and anxiety. I had absolutely
no idea what would happen. I was still working my
corporate job, I was struggling. After my first year living
in Sydney, was just like very heartbroken, and I'll be honest,
(01:54):
feeling really aimless and lost. Nothing really seemed to have
direction or purpose, and I just really couldn't have imagined
that this much would have changed, that my entire life
would be completely different a year later. Coming into twenty
twenty four, the new year is obviously such a pivotal
time for so many of us to reflect on the past,
(02:15):
to have that moment of introspection for how far we've come,
but also perhaps how much further we would like to go.
It feels so significant because it is this tangible new
beginning for us, even though you know time year's days,
there's such an arbitrary concept. I feel like just the
psychological kind of narrative around a new year leaves us
(02:36):
with a lot of expectations, a lot of big ambitions.
And it's really interesting because I think this concept of
a fresh start, that a new year brings has been
acknowledged by cultures and societies for thousands of years. The
Babylonians actually used to celebrate the new year and make
new year's resolutions or like pledges to the gods and
(02:59):
like promises that they would fulfill in order to ensure
their crops were successful, that their children were healthy, to
prevent famine. And this has been seen in just like
so many cultures, just like reverence around the beginning of
a new chapter. In like ancient Rome, they used to
celebrate the God of new beginnings and transitions around this time.
(03:20):
There's this really like rich history here that points to
the kind of the universal significance that a new year brings.
And this is what we're going.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
To discuss today, because this is the time of year
four reflecting deeply on what we want for our lives.
When we enter into a new year, we need to
set our intentions, maybe in the form of new year's resolutions,
but I actually think more powerful is setting our motives,
(03:51):
redefining what we see as our purpose, what can we
do in this new year, so that this time when
we're next year, when entering twenty twenty five, we can
kind of sit back and say, I made those changes.
I invested in the right people, I invested in myself,
in the right path, the right decisions. I took the
(04:13):
risks that I needed to take for me. Each year
seems to have a theme. Last year the theme was
very much discovery. And this year is the year for
taking risks. It is our year for kind of embracing fear,
for embracing the unknown, not being afraid of the future,
(04:35):
recognizing that we are in control. We are going to
take accountability for creating our dream life. I think risk
plays such an important role in this realization because as
we get older, it becomes so much easier to just
do what is convenient and easy, just take the path
(04:56):
laid out in front of us. We become a lot
less in our own decision making, and I think, to
be honest, we just get used to being comfortable and
not needing much else. But true growth and true happiness
comes when we really push beyond what is comfortable, beyond
what feels safe, to a place of expansion. Also, I
(05:20):
say this a lot, but what is easy isn't always
what is best. It's not necessarily going to get us
to a fulfilled place. I believe so firmly in challenging
what you expect your life to be, the kind of
blueprint that society imposes on us, and just betting on
yourself for a little bit, just taking a chance on
(05:41):
your dreams, your grand ideas. And that's really I think
what the focus of twenty twenty four is going to
be for me, and I hope it's the focus for
you as well. I want to give you an example
of how risk has really kind of changed my life.
For the longest time, I was convinced that in order
to be happy, I really needed to pursue a very
(06:04):
secure career, and I needed to push myself to move
up the corporate ladder, that the financial security that that
would bring would be fundamental to my peace of mind
and my future. And last year, after months months of
anxiety and worry, I think I realized that my notions
(06:25):
and ideas about what would make me happy were incorrect
because I was doing all the things that I thought
was going to lead to satisfaction and fulfillment and the
sense of security, and I was miserable. I was really miserable,
and so I took the risk to quit my job
to do what really truly made me feel fulfilled and
(06:46):
kind of aligned with my reason for being on this planet.
It wasn't without stress. In fact, it was probably more
stressful than when i'd been at my corporate job, especially
when it came to financial stability and being able to
pay my rent and my bills. But I I think
I knew that if I didn't do this, if I
didn't take the leap, each year, each month that passed,
(07:06):
it would just become harder for me to make that decision,
and I would regret it. I would be somewhat haunted
by the what if of the decisions that I didn't make.
So I think there's this conundrum that we all face
when we think about creating our dream life, when we
think about the things that we really want to do,
there is this inherent choice, this inherent kind of equation
(07:29):
that we need to weigh up. Do I stay where
I am and remain safe and sure of my surroundings
but possibly regret my decisions later in life or kind
of mourn the life I could have lived. Or do
I choose to be brave? Do I choose to see
what happens? Maybe I'm rewarded for my risk, but if
(07:50):
I fail at least I end up back in the
same place I was before with the knowledge that I tried.
That is a really common, I think meant conundrum that
we go through is we have these two paths, and
risk obviously requires giving up something. Risk requires maybe giving
(08:11):
up a previous dream that you've outgrown, giving up those
parts of your life that you are comfortable with, giving
up financial stability, giving up friends, giving up relationships. But
there are so many benefits and so many rewards that
come from that. And I think that there are so
many areas in life that we can choose to take risks.
We can go back to school, we can take a
(08:32):
year off to go solo traveling, we can move to
a new city, start a new business, a side hustle,
a hobby, whatever it may be. And we can also
choose to take a risk around being more honest with
people about how we feel, asking people out, dating more,
introducing yourself to strangers, going to things alone, initiating difficult conversations. Obviously,
(08:55):
this is not a full list of the risks that
I consider important, but these are the risks that are
especially in our twenties, I think we kind of have
a duty to take. You are never going to be
this free or this inhibited again. Mistakes are also an
in built part of this decade. They are in many
ways expected from us. So people give you a lot
(09:17):
more of what I would call a pass. If you
are to make the wrong decision, at least you gave
it a go. A lot of people cannot say that.
A lot of people live with the mistake of not
taking a chance on themselves for their entire lives. I
want to talk about one of my favorite studies of
all time here. There was this study that examined the
(09:40):
power and kind of the psychology of regret and the
impact of the decisions that people didn't make on their
psyche in the future. What they found is that you
are more likely to regret a decision that you didn't
make versus one that you did. Across thousands of people,
(10:00):
there were so many of them that expressed more regret
for the risks that they didn't take compared to the
ones that they did. Actually, twenty four percent of participants
regretted the things that they did do and seventy six
regretted the things that they didn't do. So I think
this study is important when we consider how we're going
(10:21):
to approach risk taking in the new year, because it
highlights the dangers of inaction, and not even just in action,
but a denial of your dreams, a denial of that
urge of what you know deeply is going to make
you happy. It is really such a tragedy to imagine
yourself on your deathbed, realizing that there is nothing you
(10:44):
can do to undo the past, but wishing that you
had been brave when it counted. And I think being
brave when it counted is something that we don't always
understand or recognize until it's in hindsight. We often don't
realize the opportunities that we have because they are so
scary to us until it's too late. And I really
(11:07):
want to encourage you to be open to what might
be coming to you in this new year that you
might discredit because it is too scary that you might
immediately say no to. Regardless of this understanding of the
benefit of risk, even if we appreciate that this could
be our future, sometimes we experience a lot of cognitive
(11:28):
dissonance around the many choices that we need to make
in our twenties. So cognitive dissonance in psychology refers to
this kind of mental discomfort experienced when we hold two
contradictory beliefs or ideas or values. I think that really
applies to the dreams that we have. So we might
see ourselves in one way as someone who was really
(11:50):
motivated by corporate success. We really want to raise a family,
we really want to perhaps pursue a quite traditional life.
That is one belief that you have about yourself. But
another belief is that you want to be a bit
of a vagabound, that you are someone who is really independent,
really free spirited. You want to start your own business,
(12:11):
you want to travel, and you kind of have these
two choices right and it feels like in this moment
you have to make a decision. You have to make
a decision right now, and making a decision requires you
to give up on one of those paths. But you
have to think about the timing of your dreams in
this moment. I have this saying that you can be
(12:33):
everything that you want to be, but you can't be
at all at once. When we think about the things
that we want from our lives, we have to consider
what can be postponed, what actually may be better to
hold off on, whereas what is best for you right now?
When would it be the best time to do these things?
(12:53):
I think when it comes to a lot of those
adventurous dreams that particularly people in our of twenties really harbor,
time to do those things is right now. It is
literally right now. Most of us do not have children,
we do not have mortgages, we have exited our education pipeline.
We've either graduated high school or university. And it's in
(13:16):
those moments of fear and kind of like the question
of what am I going to do with my life
from here on out that we need to be adventuring
and discovering and willing to branch out. It's not to
say that you can never do these things once you're
past a certain age, but simply that you have to
(13:36):
be able to make hard calls about what you want
now that may mean that you are going to delay
some of the other things in your life till later. Still,
in those moments, I do think fear is our biggest enemy.
The saying always goes fear is the killer of dreams
that I don't think that has ever been more true
than when it comes to dreams that require risk, Because
(13:57):
the essential premise of risk is that the outcome is unknown.
And it is the fact that the outcome is unknown
that makes it so scary, but also that makes it
so exciting exciting because yeah, it could grow terribly, but
also it could go incredibly well. You have no expectations,
(14:18):
you have no idea of what's going to come next,
and that just leaves so much room for surprises and
room for excitement, and room for the unexpected. What I
really want to discuss, though, is some of the things
that kind of hold us back, some of the fears
that keep us in a place of comfort, keep us
(14:39):
in a place of stability, and how we're going to
push back against that anxiety or perhaps that passivity this year,
how we're going to embrace risk in all its forms,
from small to big in twenty twenty four. So all
of that and more. After this short break, I was
(15:02):
reading this amazing book a while ago called Big Magic
by Elizabeth Gilbert. You might know her. She is the
author of that very famous book that came out a
few years ago called Eat, Pray, Love, and she also
has possibly one of the best TED talks of all time.
It's titled Your Elusive Creative Genius, which quite frankly I
(15:24):
think about at least once a week. I watch it always.
But in her book Big Magic, what she really focuses
on is the mental barriers that hold us back from
realizing our best lives, because that's what fear really is.
It's all about what's mental. It's all about our thoughts.
It's all about how we interpret a situation rather than
(15:46):
what it actually is. And I think it's this way
of thinking, thinking from a place of fear, that keeps
us buying into this feeling that we are small or
not capable of doing what we've dreamed of. You are
afraid of making a mistake. You're afraid that you have
no talent. You're afraid that it will take too much
(16:07):
time to get to where you want to be. But
the thing is that that time is going to pass anyways,
either you did something with it or you didn't. You're
afraid of it not working out perfectly. That's especially the
case for perfectionists, overachievers, people who have been taught to
do things the right way. You are afraid of disappointing
others or yourself. You're afraid that your dreams are embarrassing
(16:30):
just because other people don't understand them. You're afraid that
you don't have the right background, the right degree, the
right education, that so many people have done it before you,
that your dreams aren't special. You're afraid of being too late,
and trust me, you are never too late. If you
are still breathing. You're afraid because something went well in
(16:51):
your life once, so nothing can possibly go right again.
This is a huge cognitive distortion that a lot of
us have, as if good things in life unlike it
exists in a bank account, and we've withdrawn too much
of the money, and so all of the good things
in life, all of our I guess our balance of
(17:12):
good things has been depleted. Life doesn't work that way.
And I think the other thing that we're very afraid
of is that you're going to give up things in
your current life that you love and you won't be
able to get them back. That in itself is a
massive barrier for so many of us, a barrier to
pursuing a life that it might actually be better for us.
(17:32):
But like we said before, it's going to require sacrifice.
Here is the important thing to remember. Fear is not
real until it is realized. The easiest way for a
fear to never be realized is to never do anything
risky that will allow you to grow. You can stay
(17:53):
in your safe bubble your entire life and never have
to encounter any of those worries being realized. But at
the end of your life, you're going to have to
face an even bigger fear, the one that you let
your life pass you by and you never did anything
about it. You never did anything that was going to
(18:14):
potentially make you happier. And with that comes a lot
of bitterness around what could have been. What if my
life had been different at this moment, and now there's
nothing I can do about it. I worry about that
all the time. It's that perspective of future me that
really I think keeps me in a place of taking
chances on myself. Of course, I think that doesn't mean
(18:35):
that you should take every risk that comes across your plate,
that you should do anything that you desire or act
on every whim. There are obviously some risks that are
more calculated, more practical, more meaningful than others, and then
there are some that are just plain ridiculous. You know,
you're not going to go and jump out of a
(18:56):
plane and you've never done it before, Just because you're
ready to embrace risk like that is not a smart risk,
that is not one that is practical. But there are
some risks that we call bounded. Bounded risks are amazing.
The idea is that there are these types of risks
that have limited downsides but unbounded upsides. Essentially, what that
(19:18):
means is that although there are limited costs incurred, and
yes there will be some cost time, money, missed opportunities
to get this idea off the ground, the benefit is
that there is no limit to the benefit. These are
the risks that you should be taking. I think about
them especially in terms of this podcast right or like
(19:40):
content creation. So when I began this podcast, obviously I
had to invest some time into buying a microphone and
setting up a platform and creating episodes. But what I've
realized now is that there was an unlimited benefit from
being able to do something that I loved and engage
with people and share and convert with people who really
(20:02):
shared my passions. And then there are these risks that
are called unbounded. These are not so great. There's other
risks that we should avoid. So actually they're pretty terrible
because these risks mean that you could lose everything. So
compared to bounded risks, in which you can kind of
(20:22):
control how much you lose, with unbounded risks, there is
no limit to what you will have to give up,
and so whilst the payoff might be potentially unlimited, it
means that you're probably going to lose something pretty valuable
in order to get there. Jumping out of a plane,
that's a big one. If you've never skydive before, there
(20:43):
is no limit to how much you could potentially lose
in this situation, the limit being that you could lose
your life, and the payoff is actually not really worth
it right. Another one is like choosing to burn all
your bridges at your previous workplace or with all your
friends because it's going to leave you unmoored and allow
you to make more friends. That is not a good risk.
(21:06):
That is not a good risk before you lose a
lot more than you seek to gain. So when we
think about risks from this perspective, from kind of a
cost benefit analysis kind of perspective, we really need to
consider whether the decisions we're going to make are going
to lead to a benefit that's going to outweigh the
(21:26):
initial costs. It's important to be a little bit rational
when we think about the risks that we want to
take in our twenties, because although risk equalsphere, it does
not equal complete abandonment of everything you love and care about.
I really do believe once again that the most amazing
growth will come out of the periods of greatest discomfort,
(21:50):
where we really push ourselves and explore what's out there.
But that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be
silly about it, or you have to completely abandon or logic.
Taking risk still requires judgment, and yes there are people
who are more likely to take risks. That that doesn't
necessarily mean that you should be doing things that you
(22:11):
know aren't going to make you happy or aren't actually
aligned just because you want to be free, just because
you want to be uninhibited, just because you want to
see what happens. I think that brings me to another
important point. Risks don't have to be inherently spontaneous to
be risky. They can also be planned. I think we
often think about risks as being these things that are
(22:31):
very impulsive that just kind of come to mind and
we have to see them through. But you can take
your time, you can be prepared. You can talk it
through with family and friends, but the most important thing
in that moment is to make sure that your preparation
is not actually just an unconscious form of avoidance. You
are never going to feel fully ready for anything. Ever,
(22:52):
there will always be some doubt, there will always be
something that you cannot account for. And often when we
owe a plan and overthink that is really just an
unconscious way of us choosing to avoid fear where we
get stuck in this loop of being, of being like
if I just know more, if I'm just if I
have a few more days to prepare a few more months,
(23:14):
the outcome is going to be better. That is not
always the case. Things turn out how they're going to
turn out, regardless of how much planning you put into it.
So I think there are ways that we can become
more familiar or comfortable with the idea of risk. Firstly,
think about small risks you can take to prepare yourself
(23:35):
for a bigger risk you know is going to come
in your future. So, for example, if you want to
go traveling or move to a new country for a
year two years, take time to visit that country first,
just to make sure that it's actually what you like,
so you don't get over there and then realize that
this was a huge mistake and you want to fly
back home immediately. If you want to quit your job,
(23:58):
go to a few networking events. Start your side hustle
whilst you're still working to get a feel for it.
Prepare yourself for risk. Don't deny yourself of the risk,
but implement it in your daily life or aspects of
it in your daily life. Before you take the full
leap with any risk that involves giving up work, giving
up opportunities, giving up education, giving up jobs, take a
(24:21):
solid look at your finances before you choose to do that.
Like I said before, sometimes you do have to be
practical even if you're going to be risky. I did
this at the start of last year, and it was
really important to understand what the next few months of
my life were all years even we're going to look like.
(24:44):
So I didn't kind of just step off the deep
end and there were suddenly not just so many unknowns,
but so many ways that I could have been prepared mentally, financially, emotionally,
and wasn't. I also think, instead of thinking about risk
as these big decisions, we need to make that will
forever all to our lives. Think about them as value
(25:05):
realignment risks are a way for you to shift your
life back in the direction that aligns with how you
see yourself, with what you value from life, with what
you want from your future. And maybe you've just become
really detached from that in the past a year or two.
(25:25):
Perhaps you see yourself as a creative someone who has
like a real true fire in their belly for producing
work that really moves people from expressing their imagination. But
at the moment you've been really caught up in finishing
your business degree that you haven't made time to pursue
those parts of you. Maybe the risk you need to
(25:46):
take then is to move out of your comfort zone
and pursue this more deeply by carving out time to
do it, by setting yourself long term goals in which
you're going to realign how you're living your life with
how you wish you were living your life. Maybe you
also value being really adventurous and a bit of a nomad,
but you perhaps felt a little bit stuck post COVID
(26:09):
you feel the need to work full time to make
money for your dreams. The risk you need to take
is to just get back out there. Normally, when we are,
like I said, overplanning, over preparing, what we're really fearing
in those moments is not being unprepared, it's being uncomfortable.
(26:30):
So you kind of have to get comfortable with being
uncomfortable and kind of say, you know, fuck it, this
is actually what I want from my life, even if
it's difficult at times, even if people don't understand it.
I'm at this point where I can ever choose to
deny myself that dream or that vision for my life,
or I can choose to embrace it. Risks are really
not just a catalyst for change, but a catalyst for
(26:55):
realigning your true self with your actual self, making yourself
off the path that everyone else wants you to live
and back onto the path that you want to live.
So I want to talk about some of the risks
that I'm gonna take this year to finish it off.
I really want to solo travel. I used to be
(27:16):
completely terrified of planes, and it meant that when everyone
else around me was taking those times to do their
Europe trips or their Southeast Asia trips, I was kind
of stuck at home because I was too scared to
embark on this journey, mainly just like the first fourteen
hours of the journey on the plane, So I think
that I regret not having those experiences that a lot
(27:40):
of my friends have been able to have. So I
really want to solo travel this year. I really want
to get into a position where I can live alone
and force myself to make that decision when the time comes,
rather than just reverting to living with friends or living
with a partner. I think that I really want that
(28:01):
space to know myself even though I'm scared of being lonely,
and I really want to set myself a really big
athletic goal that might not sound like a risk for
a lot of people, but I think my fear has
always been of failing or embarrassing myself, of not meeting
people's expectations for what someone who participates in these activities
(28:25):
looks like, not being fit enough to do it or
to fit in, and that's really kept me and helped
me back from participating in activities that I think I
otherwise would have really loved and would have made a
lot of friends from. That's what I want to do
this year. I want to challenge myself to not be
constantly worrying about what other people think about me and
my behaviors and my actions, and just do it. Anyways,
(28:47):
one final reminder before we wrap up this episode. You
have a responsibility to yourself to actually just do things,
to make decisions that might leave you feeling temporarily a
little bit out of place, but will significantly change your life,
(29:08):
will set you on a new course. No one is
going to come and suddenly make your life amazing for
you. You are the only one that can do that. And
maybe not everyone will understand your motivations. Maybe you don't
even know what risk would look like for you in
this year. It doesn't matter, though, because in this life
(29:28):
you can choose to be comfortable or you can choose
to grow. I know I've said it so many times
throughout this but I do think that we need the
reminder that when we buy into fear, we also buy
into dissatisfaction and we buy into regret and that's not
something that I think we want to live with. And
if you're not quite sure what it means to you
to take a risk, what you would take a risk towards,
(29:52):
leave yourself open to opportunity. And when I say leave
yourself open to opportunity. What that really means is that
be prepared to say yes to things in the moment,
be prepared to just be open to the idea that
your expectations for what you wanted your life to look
(30:12):
like might change and might not be the same. And
also put yourself in situations where you can be challenged.
Go and try new things, interact with new types of people,
Look for new jobs that you might be interested in,
even if you're not even going to apply for them.
You know, watch travel blogs of people doing really cool things.
(30:34):
Think about the things that you loved maybe in childhood,
the dreams you had in childhood that you've kind of neglected,
that you've forgotten about. It's a really good way to,
I think, really tune into what you want from your
life that you've maybe neglected. So I want to say officially,
welcome to your year for taking risks in whatever capacity
(30:57):
you choose to do that. Welcome. I'm so excited to
hear from you about what are the risks you are
going to take in twenty twenty four. What are the
things that you are going to realize or at least
just explore this year. How are you going to push
past your fear and your anxiety to maybe discover something
(31:19):
about yourself that you never knew. I'm really excited to
see what that means, not just for me, but for
all of you, my lovely listeners. I'm so excited for
this year. It's just crazy how fast time is going.
I'm not going to think about it too much. I
feel like that will lead me into such an existential spiral.
But I also just want to say thank you so
(31:40):
much for your support in twenty twenty three. My entire
life truly did change, and that would not have been
possible without you, every single one of you, who listens
every single week, who supports me in silent ways, who
shares episodes with friends. It's just mind blowing that I
(32:01):
have this community, and every day I'm just so grateful
for it. I'm so grateful for it. I really don't
have the words, so I guess I'll just say one
more time, thank you so much, and hopefully I will
see more of you this year. I will see more
of you in twenty twenty four. If you enjoyed this episode,
please feel free to leave a five star review on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you are listening right now. Share
(32:25):
it with a friend if this is what they need
to hear. Make sure you're following for all of our
new episodes this year, and we will be back next
week with another episode. Happy New Year.
Host
Jemma Sbeghen
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