You’re never going to be ready.

That moment that you think is coming where you’re going to go “Ah okay now I’m ready to do this” well, it never comes. You’re never really ready. Especially with the big things. Love. Adventure. Goals. You just never really feel fully ready to do it. If you’re lucky, you might feel 75% ready.

And that’s even a stretch at its best.

I remember my dad telling me that success in life really comes down to just being a little bit more excited about things happening that afraid. It’s of course a sliding scale, but you have to also look at the fact that you’re always going to have fear there and you’re always going to have excitement as well. It’s wonderful that you have both things.

But which do you focus on? Because all of the energy you put into something going wrong, well, you’re probably going to get that.

As I’ve gone throughout my own journey, I’m starting to think that the greatest things you can enjoy in life are designed to be granted in a specific way.

Why?

Time and time I’ve seen this gate that doesn’t really exist in the physical sense but acts more of a mirage.

Each of us can pass through it, but the $ you have to put in is this thing called “risk.” And risk, well, that’s scary as shit sometimes to be brutally honest.

What happens with most? They get stuck outside the gate. Why? Because they are too afraid to go for it or they’ve been hurt before…simply put they are afraid to risk again because of what “might” happen. What “might happen” is absolutely deadly if you let it run off in your mind. You will concoct all sorts of scenarios – 99% of them never even likely to happen and then you’re going to be stuck in a world full of indecision and regret.

Ugh and regret is the worst thing in the world.

But you become something entirely different when you put in the coin of risk and decide to walk into the unknown. Those gates open up right in front of you and you get to walk into a bank of fog where you can hardly see in front of you. More fear? Oh you bet.

Will you fail? Yes of course you will. Absolutely. But that’s also part of the design. Because when you fail doing something you’ve never done, you grow. You grow because you gain experience and out of all of the things this world has to offer, actually having firsthand experience is pretty much one of the most valuable assets to have.

So you keep doing that over and over again and you keep growing.

But again, what happens with most?

They see the failure as a judgement on them and they stop putting in that coin of risk – therefore stuck outside that gate again.

But the people with the biggest smiles, the greatest stories to tell, the deepest love and the greatest life embrace failure and risk…and toss aside what might happen and focus on what amazing things could happen. And what do they find? That it’s usually 100x better when they arrive where they were meant to be.  They find that they could never have predicted how amazing it actually is. They start to see the value in all of the failures and take those lessons into their next endeavors. But most of all, they know the worth of standing at that gate of risk again…and putting in their dues.

So be brave. Dance in the unknown. You will change in amazing ways.

That’s the magic of life.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project