The One Thing You Should Be Afraid Of…

Yesterday we talked about the fact that most of us are afraid of things like failure that aren’t actually dangerous.

The thing is, the opposite problem exists as well: we aren’t afraid of things that should scare us.

Virtually no one seems to be afraid of texting while driving. This is really weird. Texting while driving is a potentially deadly habit.

Yet almost everyone is scared of public speaking.

Texting while driving is dangerous. Speaking in front of people is not.

You could argue that sometimes it’s worth being afraid of things that aren’t actually dangerous. Sometimes, the risk is high enough and the consequences are severe enough, that a certain amount of fear is warranted.

I completely agree.

But I think the thing that best fits that category is not public speaking and it’s not failure.

It’s regret.

Worse than trying and failing is failing to try. We think of attempting something that carries the chance of failure as risky behavior, but unless it carries the possibility of real danger, it’s actually safer than the alternative.

Think about it this way: you might be scared to write a book because it might not do well and in hindsight you will realize that you wasted your time. But not writing a book is a guarantee that you won’t have a book that does well, and it carries with it the shame of knowing that you played it safe, you didn’t go for it.

The default destination is mediocrity.

If you try to avoid failure, you’ll end up at the default destination, which is an enormous failure.

Taking action often involves a high chance of failure, but not as high as the 100% chance of failure that accompanies inaction.

The Sting of Regret Increases Over Time

I’m only 31 years old and I already have plenty of regrets.

Many of these stem from having played it safe and not used my 20’s to their fullest.

But I have plenty of time ahead of me. One of they key principles of becoming successful is to focus on the things you can control, not the things that you can’t. So I try to spend as little time as possible beating myself up for what came before and try to focus on what I can do now.

The problem is, the longer you let things slide, the more you watch your years go by paralyzed in a state of inaction, the less time you have to do anything about it.

At age 31, there’s not a lot that’s not open to me anymore. Sure I probably missed my window for being a pro athlete, but that would have been a long shot anyway.

Things would be much more brutal if I were 80 and painfully aware of all the things that I wanted to do but never attempted.

Regretting Taking Action

I think that regret is far more likely to be the result of inaction than action, but for the sake of thoroughness, it’s worth addressing the latter situation.

I’m guessing that if you take out your whole life savings to start a business opening pop up shops selling popsicles in the winter, you’re probably going to regret it.

The most obvious reason why that situation is likely to end in regret is that it’s a really risky move to start a business with a really bad business model. But there’s a more subtle and more important reason.

Your “why” wasn’t clear.

The reason why people start bad business ventures is because they want they money. There’s nothing wrong with that. I want money. I’m guessing you want money. Money is great.

The thing is, there are a million ways to get money, and most of them don’t involve taking out your life savings (in fact, the argument can and should be made that your life savings would do fine making money for you if invested in the stock market). That’s the kind of drastic move you should only do if you have a deep and powerful reason besides money.

It’s so important to get clarity about what you really want. I’m talking about real, specific clarity, not lazy, vague wishes like “I want to be rich.”

I want to be rich too. So does everyone else. Whenever you hear that phrase “so does everyone else,” you know you’re on the road to mediocrity.

Wanting to be rich is fine, but it’s common and unremarkable. To be remarkable, you need to do what few people are willing to do: define your deepest desires and commit to them.

If you have been following me for any length of time, you know that my favorite way of doing this is with a short, powerful exercise called the 10 Year Plan for a Remarkable Life:

By defining what you want your life to be like in 10 years, you gain clarity about what you should be doing here and now to make your dreams into a reality.

Committing to a plan is scary, because as soon as you do so you introduce the possibility that you might fail.

Of course, not all failure is really failure. If you put in your plan that you want to retire in 10 years, but ten years from now you’re still only 90% of the way there, you technically failed. But was it really a failure?

If you want to write a bestseller and write a book that sells well but doesn’t hit the bestseller list, you technically failed. But was it really a failure?

Not only do you get the benefits of putting in the work, you get the satisfaction of knowing that your commitment to a goal changed your situation for the better.

Even if you struggle to achieve your dreams, you’re unlikely to regret it as long as they were your dreams.

This is the sixteenth in a series based on my article 30 Lessons About Life You Should Learn Before Turning 30. Shoutout to Dr. Christine Bradstreet 🌴 for the idea to turn the post into an in-depth series.