The Secret to Taking Risks That Pay Off

Recently I was on the phone with a guy who was calling from halfway around the world, in the middle of his sabbatical year. He worried about what was going to happen in six months.

He felt like it was inevitable that he’d simply have to go back to his old job, and that seemed depressing.  
 
“I took this big step,” he said, “now how do I make sure it really takes me where I want to go?”
 
People often come to me with this question.
 
They confess this doubt sheepishly, perhaps feeling a bit silly, because how can I possibly help them guarantee their future?
 
I’m only human.
 
Life is full of the unexpected.
 
No one is in control.
 
Yet, I am completely confident telling you – and anyone else who will listen – that there is absolutely a way to make sure your big steps in life truly take you where you want to go – or somewhere even better.
 
Perhaps this is best explained through a nice springtime metaphor.
 
The last month or so, my father-in-law has been spending a lot of time in his massive vegetable garden below our house. He’s meticulous. He borrowed my husband’s tractor to till the earth, to mix in manure. He spent countless hours weeding, preparing the beds, selecting and buying seeds.
 
Now, like any farmer, my father-in-law is not in control of a lot of factors when it comes to his harvest this year. He is not in control of sun, rain, hail, infestations, diseases and a whole host of other things that can go awry.
 
Still, I have no doubt we are going to enjoy plentiful, delicious produce from his garden this year.
 
Why?
 
Because he has put the work into it.
 
He has thought about exactly what he wants in his garden and how it will be. He has carefully selected what varieties of seeds to use, and is timing his plantings according to the weather and what he knows has worked from years past.
 
Every day after lunch, my father-in-law attentively watches the weather forecast on the little television next to his kitchen table. By the time he’s back in his garden in the afternoon, he has figured out his next steps to mitigate any weather factors out of his control. He waters when there’s too much sun. He stretches netting over the fragile plants to protect from a coming hailstorm.  
 
My father-in-law’s garden is a wonder to behold. His combination of vision, experience, faith, and persistence gives him amazing results. Nature is his great collaborator too, surprising him every year with at least one or two crops that are truly spectacular.
 
Your life is no different.
 
You can also see your dreams come to fruition – even in an unpredictable world – if you do the work.
 
Again, this is the work:
 
Take time out of life to create a quiet space just for you, where you can tune into your intuition and clarify your vision.
 
Face the fears and risks ahead and create a plan to mitigate them.
 
Break your big goals into doable steps and start taking them, with faith, openness and persistence.
 
Repeat as often as needed.
 
This work is not always easy. Following your own vision can be scary. It can bring up old stories and limiting beliefs. It can reveal that you’ve been on a wrong path for a long time and this can be difficult to admit to yourself or others. It can mean that you are going to have to “step out of line” with people in your life whose opinions are important to you.
 
So much can come up, which is why I’m here to help.

Join the Summer Sprint

I’m opening up four spots in my Boldly Back on Track 4-Month Intensive Program for four people who are ready to get moving now.
 
In four months, it’ll be September. How different would you like your life to look by then?
 
What if this year, you didn’t fall into the same-old trap of, “Nothing gets done in summer – I’ll have to wait until fall”?
 
What if by the fall, everything had changed?
 
What if, like my father-in-law, you were also reaping the rewards of all the seeds you had planted in spring and cultivated in summer?
 
If this idea lights you up, and you want to learn more, grab a time to talk with me.
 
I’m happy to tell you more about how to apply these concepts to your life and what it’s like to have me as your guide.
 
Come September, thanks to my father-in-law, we’re going to be overwhelmed with nature’s abundance around here.
 
I’d love to see that happen in your life too.