Fear Vs Risk

Something that many people consider an admirable trait is being fearless. We appreciate someone who is willing to go for it, put themselves out there, and take action unimpacted by the fear most people would have in the same situation. 

Some people say being completely fearless is reckless, but I disagree. I think it's possible that being fearless always serves us. What gets people into trouble is not accurately quantifying the risk associated with the action they’re taking fearlessly.

Fear is a universal human emotion. In fact it’s a survival instinct. The reason we’ve evolved to have fear is to keep us out of harm's way, and avoid doing things that may threaten our safety. The emotion hijacks our decision making and keeps us from doing something that may hurt us.

However, our fear is hyperactive in modern society and keeps us from doing things that don’t actually pose a threat to our safety. In fact, it often keeps us from taking action in the big, bold, confident ways required to reach our goals and dreams. 

It’s a fear of what others might think, a fear of failure, or a fear of looking stupid that holds us back. While that form of fear used to keep us from doing something that would cause us to be outcast from our tribe, in today’s world it’s no longer a matter of life or death.

Risk however is an understanding for the likelihood of different potential outcomes. It’s a thoughtful, measured approach to assessing how you want to proceed. You weigh the risks, probabilities, consequences, and upsides against each other to reason how you want to proceed.

Quantifying risk is a conscious process, feeling emotional is an unconscious process. What’s best for us is our best understanding of how we want to proceed, not how our physiology is telling us to. There are plenty of things that we’re afraid of that we shouldn’t do because they’re too risky. But our sense of fear is just one of the inputs we use to calculate the overall risk. It serves us to choose not to do those things because we’ve quantified the risk rather than we fear doing them. 

So the next time you’re feeling afraid but trying to coach yourself into taking action, create consciousness but evaluating the risk. What’s the worst that could happen, and how likely is that to happen? What’s the best thing that could happen, and what’s the likelihood of that? And, what has the highest probability of happening, and what are the pros and cons inherent to it?

Fear is an emotion. Risk is a measurement. It’s better to be conscious and choose our future rather than let emotions choose for us.