Comfort Zones and Risky Behavior

Sometimes I teach horses, sometimes I give lessons, and sometimes life hands lessons to me. Lessons that can only be learned by stepping out there, taking risks and making mistakes.

I crave the thrill of taking a risk and seeing what happens. Sometimes it works out in my favor, sometimes it’s a failure I’ll never forget, but at least I tried something.

I haven’t always been a risk taker, in fact I was quite the opposite most of my life. I spent the first half of my 20’s afraid of everything.

I was too afraid of the unknown to get out of a soul sucking relationship. I was too afraid of being broke to pursue a career I really wanted. I was too afraid of being a failure to try anything I wasn’t good at. I lived inside a box that felt safe and familiar even though it was incredibly destructive.

There was a specific day, somewhere in the middle of my divorce, that I remember sitting by myself on a beach. All I could think was “I cannot waste my life. I can’t sit back and let life pass me by.  I want to feel what it feels like to be strong, and brave and live with reckless abandon. I don’t want to live the ‘safe’ life anymore, and I don’t ever want to be someone’s victim again”

This is where my “grit” comes from now days. This is what keeps me up at night studying new training techniques and writing out new training programs. This is what fuels my fire to become the best trainer that I can possibly be. Its what makes me want to take risks and try new things. I got tired of living “safe”.

The thing about living life “safe”, is that its the biggest deception of all. Can we really ever escape danger, failure or loss? Maybe by living safe we are taking the biggest risk of all, the risk of regretting what we never tried.

It was a huge risk for me to leave my cushy career as a hair stylist and start training horses full time, but it was a risk I had to take because I knew if I played it safe I would regret it forever.

I don’t think we are meant to live a “safe” life anyway. I think God calls us to live a life of faith, trusting in Him to provide. I think stepping out in faith is what causes us to be increasingly dependent on God. Its easy to get comfortable in our daily life and forget that we need Him every step of the way. There is nothing like taking a risk and leaving your comfort zone to remind you of that.