The Reasons Behind Risk Avoidance
There are risks to avoiding risk.
While safety is very important for our mental health, it isn't everything.
An obsessive focus on safety swiftly turns into isolation; limiting our perspective and fulfillment.
It can feel comfortable avoiding risks, but we can always get too comfortable limiting ourselves.
Don't worry - this isn't going to be a LinkedIn TED Talk about why comfort is the enemy of greatness.
It's important to feel comfortable, but risks aren't supposed to feel certain.
When we pine for certainty, we desperately desire control as to protect ourselves.
But vulnerability isn't something we shut off just because it "could" lead to catastrophe.
Lots of people do - closing off their hearts, their minds, and their homes to ensure an absence of risk; an atmosphere of complete control.
When we shut ourselves in, we shut others out.
We also shut out opportunity for life to be new in any way, especially in positive ways.
Love, connection, fun, expression, and delight are all risks worth taking.
In this article, I'll cover why risk is necessary and methods for taking more risks in your life.
Why is Risk Necessary?
Many people mistake the potential outcomes of risk with what risk actually is.
Risk is vulnerability at a point of transition.
It's a risk to start walking as a baby, to learn math, and to make friends - you might fall, fail, or feel embarrassed.
However, you might also walk, succeed, and connect - all positive outcomes you couldn't have achieved without risk.
Risk is the necessary vulnerability you must endure to get something or somewhere more fulfilling.
Every time risk grants you your desired outcomes, it can reinforce your confidence, capability, and effort.
Over time, you develop strong beliefs in risk taking skills - it's like developing a muscle by using it.
Also, exposure to risk allows you to discern between (1) damage & (2) discomfort.
You learn the difference between what pain is telling you to stop and what pain is from the transition point.
You can brace all sorts of discomfort and take healthy risks once you become more accustomed to the discomfort of the transition point.
If you want fulfilling relationships, you need risk.
If you want to write, sing, or dance, you need risk.
If you want to pursue your passions, you need risk.
To try anything new and wonderful, you need the discomfort of risk to get there.
What is Risk Avoidance?
Risk avoidance is steering clear of most opportunities that involve risk.
Essentially, all potential outcomes of risk are avoided to ensure you don't receive the negative ones.
Many who avoid risk are aversive to feeling out of control, discomfort, or failure.
You will have less of each if you avoid risk, but you also sacrifice all the wonderful outcomes risk can provide such as love, expression, and enjoyment.
In psychology, we call this in avoidant motivation - the drive to experience less vulnerability.
This is common for individuals under high stress, struggling with chronic anxiety, and have dealt with a history trauma.
Essentially, life may have taught you that the outcomes of risk and vulnerability are predominantly pain and catastrophe.
I can't blame people who have been threatened, abused, or neglected who believe vulnerability isn't in their best interest.
However, avoiding risk in the past might have been a response to previous circumstances - if you're in a different place in your life, then you're likely facing less threatening circumstances.
You might continue to find relief by avoiding risks, but the fear doesn't go away just because you appease it for the moment.
Risks are everywhere, and avoidant motivations might still be entrenched in you everywhere you go.
Over time, risk becomes synonymous with "bad".
Risk is not inherently bad, but labeling it as such would make any person want to steer clear of it.
Then, you are not fearing risk for what it is, but for what it means.
However, you can take a risk by questioning why you fear it in the first place.
The Stacking Fears of Risk Avoidance
Identifying why you avoid risk is the first crucial step to overcoming your fears.
There are a few common reasons, all of which can stack on top of each other in this order.
1 - Fear of Change
Risk is change - the old changes into something new.
If you're afraid of what could change for the worse - you probably fear risk.
Change itself can seem threatening - you can lose what you had, and you can be hurt by what you find.
2 - Fear of Failure
Failure is a possible outcome when you take a risk.
In reality, it's where we fall short of a standard - if you fail a test, you simply don't the score to pass.
It's your mind that interpret what failure means - about you, your abilities, and even your worth.
If you dread failure and all the consequences it could lead to, of course you're going to fear risk.
3 - Fear of Rejection
If you fail or deem yourself a failure, then you might fear what it could mean
If you think a failed risk means awful things about you, what might someone else think?
What would your friends, colleagues, or family think?
You might fear someone rejecting you for your failed risks.
Rejection is terrifying, especially by those who matter most.
4 - Fear of Shame
There's shame for what you do, then there's shame for who you are.
Shame for being yourself is a dark and sullen feeling - as if something negative and permanent about you has been proven by a resume of failed risks.
Why would anyone want to risk feeling inescapably broken and unwanted?
What Leads to Risk Avoidance?
Fear is often learned.
Here are some of the common experiences that lead to a risk avoidance:
1 - Fear is Taught
We usually learn in one of two way, (1) One is direct learning, where someone teaches you something and the other is (2) vicarious learning, where we learn by watching others.
If you have a parent who struggles with risk, chances are they taught you that risk was bad.
You also may have witnessed them practice that belief in their own lives.
If you come from a family background of risk avoidance, it might be all you know.
If your childhood home did not provide enough opportunities to overcome risk, chances are you never developed confidence.
If you never developed confidence, you might avoid risk while continuing to believe you would fail.
That inherent belief you're not enough lies deep in your self-image.
2 - Low Self-Esteem
Low self-esteem plays a large part in risk avoidance.
When facing a challenge, there are two questions at play: (1) how difficult is the challenge & (2) how capable am I?
If you believe you're incapable, then almost any challenge, no matter how small, will seem like an assured failure.
Self-esteem is developed in late childhood and early adolescence. If any negative experiences could be liable for creating a negative image of yourself, it's in that time.
- Traumatic Experiences
Trauma results in a dangerous pairing of symptoms: Inappropriate guilt & avoidance.
Essentially, trauma has the ability to convince our brains that the tragedy we experienced was really our fault.
It also associates any reminders of traumatic events with feeling unsafe.
That means that any reminder of a trauma (thought, people, or place) can elicit a fight-flight-freeze response.
As a result, you would likely avoid anything even resembling the risk of your past.
Oftentimes, risk itself can be associated with (1) your fault & (2) danger.
It makes sense that someone would avoid risk whatsoever to avoid the danger that risk posed before.
Trapped Between Fear & Isolation
If you avoid risk, but hate feeling alone, it would seem that you're stuck between two equally awful options.
On one end you have loneliness and isolation - you might never try to connect with someone on a deep level or express your inner wants and passions.
However, there is also the other extreme to consider. The one where you try to leave no room for failure if you do take a risk.
Perfectionism
Perfectionism is a typical response to a fear of failure - a potential outcome of risks.
However, it's really an attempt to avoid risk, failure, rejection, and shame.
It's the neurotic attempt to achieve something that doesn't exist. You can never live outside a life filled with errors and risk.
Controlling Behavior
If you can make your world smaller, you can try to control more of it.
It's one thing to control things in your environment - its another to control people.
Turns out, people don't like to be controlled.
Personal freedom is an essential component to emotionally-healthy living.
However, other people's freedom may be a threat to your fear of rejection because they have the option to do it.
As a result, people might not want to stick around. If you can't achieve perfection and can't control others to finally feel safe, what do you do?
Find the Reason in Your Story
To overcome risk avoidance, you need to look at your story - your fear will probably originate somewhere in your lived experience.
Explore the Past
If fear is taught, it's time to learn a different lesson.
Look back at your life, uncover who or what taught you that risk is "bad".
Once you can clearly identify who taught you whatabout risk, it's time to view that as a perspective.
Then, create a more accurate, realistic perspective of what risk actually is.
Risk is a natural transition point between you and what you want. Life might have taught you differently, but it's time to reframe what you are avoiding.
Reinvigorate your Current Self
Once you reframe the challenge, it's time to discover your confidence.
Taking effective risks comes with practice and self-affirmation.
You need to take small bite-sized risks to remind yourself that you can do hard things to get the outcomes you want.
Take control of what your efforts and outcomes mean.
Failure doesn't lead to shame if you don't believe it's anything worth being ashamed of.
Re-examine your Expectations
Look at your schedule and look for opportunities to take risks.
More importantly, search for what you want that would necessitate some risk.
If you can see a risky future as a potentially better one, then you might be more willing to try.
A future full of risk is not a bad one. It's you trying to forge a path to what you want in this life.
Final Thoughts
Risk is the cost of a brand new tomorrow - a ticket to the things you want.
Vulnerability is the risky ticket to a joyful relationship.
Expression is the risky ticket to a fulfilling hobby or career.
Trying is the risky ticket to the pleasure of doing.
I hope you find what you love and want, and find the courage to buy the risky ticket.
