Get off the couch, but don’t forget the bandaids.
Is it best to fail or to never try at all?
Risk taking is a normal part of life for any guy. Some risks are small, like tempting fate to drink the milk in the refrigerator a few days after its expiration date. Sounds like a Tik-tok challenge right there.
Other risks are larger and may carry a mild penalty with the consequences. For example, parking in a no-parking zone to run into a store for a moment. Then discovering a $100 citation snuggled under your windshield wiper when you return. Yes, you may have saved ten minutes in your day, but it cost you $10 a minute and points on your license. Was it worth the risk?
Then there are the most extreme risks, which can jeopardize your life and/or the lives of those around you. While some thrill seekers may embrace these risks, ie. heliskiing in avalanche prone areas, others avoid these dangerous risks for their entire lives. Before undertaking any extreme risk, one must carefully calculate the benefits of taking the risk vs the perceived gain from a successful attempt.
Going for it on fourth down.
The ability to take risk is an admirable trait, and one that many successful men share. Starting a new business, courting a girl that’s “out of your league”, or pushing your comfort zone at work are all acceptable ways to take risk. There are times when going for it on fourth down is what separates the men from the boys.
If you try to go for it on fourth down and turn the ball over, you’re considered a loser. If your plan succeeds, you are genius and maybe even a champion. When you take a risk, there is an inherent contract that you entering with yourself (and others). Hopefully, you have carefully considered the “risk vs reward” outcomes and your risk pays off. But there will be times when the gamble does not work out in your favor. These are some hard life lessons to learn, especially for younger guys who’s ups and down ride on the rails of their successes and failures.
Take the dating example from above. A guy who crosses paths with an awesome single lady, but his friends tell him, “she’s out of your league.” First off, are these guys even your friends? The guy is weighing the negative impact rejection will have on his ego, verse the positive impact of scoring a first date or more. He’s putting his confidence, hard work and self esteem on the line. As any guy who’s been stood up before knows, going after a beautiful girl can be risky business.
When the inevitable happens, and one of your risks fails, you must learn from your mistake. Did you over estimate your ability at a new job? Maybe you tried to adopt a new fitness regime without first building a base level of strength? Did you commit to too many deadlines, meetings and activities? Did you drop the ball in the big game?
Learning from mistakes is often painful.
Mistakes can cause at least two types of pain and suffering. There is pain that is physical, like a sports injury. Other times the pain is all emotional, like skipping a parent’s birthday only to loose them in the next year and regretting you didn’t spend more time with them. Studies of soldiers returning from battle where they lost a comrade have shown that PTSD-like symptoms can manifest in both psychological and physical pain. Carrying the burden of a mistake can be a heavy weight indeed.
Risk taking is closely associated with attractiveness to women. It goes way back to the time when humans lived in caves. The guy who took the risk to fight the saber tooth tiger and win took home extra food and the recognition that he’s not one to be messed with. Men had to take risks to survive and it was through these risks that information was gained and knowledge collected.
Imagine the first guy that tried to cross a flooded river, and was washed down stream. That didn’t turn out to good for him, so the guy watching him decided that it was “too risky” to cross at that time or place. The guy who waited or changed locations was the guy who took the risk and won. Learning from mistakes, not his in this case, helped this particular caveman live to fight another day.
Taking risk in modern times.
In the modern era, deciding when to swim across flooded rivers isn’t a scenario that we are faced with regularly. Deciding to buy stocks on Robinhood is more common than fighting sabertooth tigers to the death! We face different types of risks, like what to post (or not post) on social media, to go to college or enter the workforce immediately, and what substances we may choose to experiment with. Each of these choices has their own set of inherent risks and require that the man making the decision weigh the consequences of his actions.
The first step of learning from your mistakes comes with ownership of the mistake. This is an entire life lesson in its own, and there are many great resources that have been written on the subject. (Extreme Ownership). Once the mistake is owned there is something supernatural that occurs within the man; the mistake doesn’t hurt as bad anymore. Now, we didn’t say that the pain goes away, and that surely isn’t the case (especially with injuries), but accepting the mistake is the only way to begin understand where you went wrong and how you contributed to the failure.
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