where you are and where you want to be

getting from where you are to where you want to be isn’t all that difficult when you think about it. it takes commitment to your goal and hard work to get there, but you’ve already done those things before to get where you are right now. the thing that keeps most of us from reaching that goal, however, is that in order to get from where you are to where you want to be there’s a large gap of scary stuff in the middle.

anything that’s worth doing involves some level of risk. unfortunately for us, we have evolved as humans to have one of the strongest emotional responses to loss. back in more dangerous times, this loss aversion kept us alive. in more modern times, it’s what keeps many of us from having a booming stock portfolio because we just can’t accept the risk of losing our money in order to have high returns on our investments. it’s also what keeps us from quitting our jobs and moving out west for a better opportunity. it’s what keeps us from starting our own business and becoming our own boss. it’s what keeps us hanging around in a stagnant career with little to no growth opportunities because we’re hard-wired to value more strongly those things we have—even if we don’t necessarily care for them—simply because we have them.

what separates where you are and where you want to be isn’t the hard work and effort needed to get you there. what really prevents us from going after what we really want is knowing that often times that means risking everything and starting over from scratch.

to succeed epically, we have to be willing to fail epically.