Today is August 31 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “How often do you take calculated risks?”
People who navigate the chaos know the difference between careless risks and calculated risks.
To achieve any level of personal growth or professional development individuals have to take some level of calculated risk.
To differentiate between a careless risk and a calculated one it is best to remember the Zen proverb “Never test the depth of the water with both feet.” Someone who takes a careless risk jumps in the water with both feet while a person who takes calculated risks steps in with one foot first to better understand how deep the water is.
Anne Kreamer published "Not Taking Risks is the Riskiest Career Move of All" in the Harvard Business Review noting research the concluded “anxiety about our job futures weighs heavily these days. More than half of the were thinking of changing not just their jobs, but their careers. Think about that. Half of all Americans long to do something dramatically different with their working lives. But it’s hard to jettison a career decades in the making in the pursuit of something new. There’s an enormous gap between dreaming about doing something different, particularly if one has spent years building skills and rising through the ranks, and actually doing anything about it. It’s terrifying to think about just letting go of one’s hard-earned law degree and years invested on the law-firm partner track in order to write for television, as an acquaintance of mine has done. Most people dream, but fail to act.”
If you want to successfully navigate the chaos you need to dream and then ask yourself how often you take calculated risks to translate your dream into reality.