How to Train your Risk Muscle
By Ivana Milojkovic
All risks are not created equal. For some, risk-taking might mean skydiving or bungee-jumping, while for others, it might mean changing up their regular Starbucks order. Whichever risk-taker category you fall into, it’s important to remember that risk is an inextricable part of our lives. Risk, by nature, requires us to temporarily suspend logic or reason and extend ourselves into the discomfort that accompanies novelty. While taking a risk may initially elicit fear and anxiety, it has the power to enhance our lives for the better. Ultimately, the magnitude of the risk (e.g., going skydiving vs. ordering a new latte) determines the magnitude of the reward, meaning that if you are hoping to achieve great outcomes you must overcome great fears.
How do we face our fear of the unknown and flex our risk muscle to yield positive outcomes? By training it, as you would any other muscle, using the five practices below:
Tap into your self-awareness.
Individuals who understand their own strengths and weaknesses are better able to manage risk in their personal and professional lives. Genetic anthropologists suggest that each individual’s biological risk-taking algorithm (the internal calculations that determine how we’ll handle danger and uncertainty when we encounter it) operates at a different frequency. Some people grab onto risk with both hands, while some avoid risk at all costs. Knowing your baseline is a crucial first step in taking a risk; it enables you to prepare according to your personal risk learning curve. For example, those who are less risk-inclined might need extra time to research skydiving safety statistics before even considering going skydiving. However, those who are more risk-inclined might go straight to booking a skydiving session.
Be open to unconventional alternatives.
Professor Mauricio Delgado is a Rutgers University neuroscientist who studies how emotions and stress affect our decisions. He argues that we intuitively weigh consequences before making decisions (and, therefore, taking risks). Professor Delgado recommends adapting our mindset to intentionally explore alternative decisions prior to weighing the initial decision’s risks against its consequences. Say that we are considering climbing a mountain but are fearful of the risk of injury or death: we might explore the various options available to us before making the final decision on which mountain to climb. The lowest risk scenario might involve not climbing at all, while the medium risk scenario might involve rock scrambling at a low-elevation state park. The highest risk scenario—the one most likely to cause injury or death—might involve climbing Mt. Everest. With these three alternative scenarios in mind, we can determine how the benefits of each alternative compares to its level of risk. This strategy enables us to take calculated risks and ultimately learn how to make better decisions.
Consider risks that enable long-term outcomes.
Functional risk-taking is about reasoned risk and understanding future goals and desired outcomes over time. The successful risk-taker takes risks that help them move toward a long-term goal, whereas the dysfunctional risk-taker is only looking at short-term outcomes. Consider this example: Two employees schedule separate meetings with their boss to share their competing and unconventional alternatives that they believe will help the company make millions in profits if successful. The dysfunctional risk-taker comes to the table with no significant data points or rationale to support her idea, other than the fact that she thought of it first. The successful risk-taker, however, makes her case in a calculated, thoughtful, and prepared manner that enables the long-term outcomes. The boss disregards the dysfunctional risk-taker’s idea and goes with the successful risk-taker’s idea.
Stop talking about risk in extremes.
Two simplistic narratives can delude our objectivity when it comes to everyday decision-making:
“Risk is bad: it can lead to danger.”
“Risk is good: it can lead to happiness.”
Risks are more complicated than “good” or “bad.” Risk-taking is an integral part of the brain’s learning system. It offers us the potential to grow, explore, and respond to the world around us. No risk is all bad or all good, but all risk is a learning experience. And if we view risk-taking in terms of extremes, we confuse our brains into either pushing us to take too many questionable risks or avoiding risk altogether.
Be willing to fail.
Successful risk-takers manage to regulate their emotional response to errors, place them in the proper context, and learn what they can to better reach their goals. They view failure as an opportunity to learn and gain experience. Consider author and Stanford University Professor Dr. Carol S. Dweck’s research on growth and fixed mindsets. Dweck postulates that failure presents an opportunity, rather than a dead end, on the road of life. This type of growth mindset allows us to embrace all the challenges, setbacks, and obstacles that feed into taking risks—where the possibility of failure is always on the table.
Rockwood encourages empowered and measured risk-taking at all levels—internally for its consultants’ professional development and externally for its clients. Contact info@rockwoodcompany.com for more information on how Rockwood can help your organization achieve its goals.
Note: Creative thinker and motivational speaker Roger von Oech coined the term “risk muscle,” arguing that if we don’t flex it, it will atrophy, and we will no longer progress or take chances.
References:
Dweck, Carol. Mindset: New Psychology of Success. Ballantine Books, 2022.
Martin, Laura N., and Mauricio R. Delgado. “The Influence of Emotion Regulation on Decision-Making under Risk.” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, vol. 23, no. 9, 2011, pp. 2569–81. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2011.21618.
Sukel, Kayt. The Art of Risk: The New Science of Courage, Caution, and Chance. National Geographic, 2016.