Be cautious but not too cautious

Be Cautious but not too cautious…  As I was driving to work today.  A day where we had some ice.  But not a lot of ice.  Something that is not really a surprise for a January in the Mid West.  I came up behind a car that was going 15 miles an hour on a road where the speed limit is 50.

Good they were being cautious.

Bad they were being way too cautious.

Being cautious to the point that their actions were actually becoming a danger to others.  In this case their overly cautious actions were causing dangerous conditions for others.  What if we look at this is a different way.  How are your actions affecting things for you?

If you are being overly cautious in your life, goals, decision making can and probably will lead to missed opportunities.

Getting past being overly cautious is not something that will be easy to do.  But trust me it can be done.  Being overly cautious can come about from many different things.  Mostly it comes about from habit and a fear of failure.  Once you can learn to overcome those two obstacles you free up time.  The non productive time that you spend thinking about the things that you wish you were doing.

Be decisive

What can you do about it?

You can do what ever you want about it.

It really comes down to weighing your options and deciding.  Should I be cautious about everything or should I take some risks.

You want to get something done.  But the cautious side of you says what if I fail?  Well then you fail.

The risk taking side of you says what if I succeed?  Well then you succeed.

That is all pretty obvious.  The thing to keep in mind is.  If you don’t try at all then the only thing that you will do is fail.

I am not saying that all risks are worth it.  There are risks where being cautious is the way to go.  Go back to our example at the beginning.  You are driving in some ice.   How bad is the ice.  How cautious should you be?   If you are being so cautious that it puts others in harms way then you are probably being too cautious.

What is it you want to do?  How do you want to get there?

Weigh the risks and make a choice.

If you make no choice then the choice has been made for you.

Eat more Bacon

I was watching a video about being cautious.   It was about whether you should eat a bacon sandwich every day.  The down side of eating a bacon sandwich every day was that it could increase your chances of getting cancer or increase your chances of death due to eating unhealthy food every day.

The upside being that bacon sandwiches are extremely delicious and make you happy because you are eating something good.

The risk – don’t eat it to avoid the negatives.  It turns out the negative was an extremely small risk of the cancer or dying early due to taking the risk.

He decided that the benefit of eating the bacon sandwich far outweighed the risks that were out there.  Yes there is risk but the risk is acceptably small.

You can apply this to the question of are you being overly cautious.

So as you set your goals in life  and come up with your plan to life the good life weigh the risks against the benefits.  This way you can help yourself to decide to get over being too cautious.

Someone once told me that worrying does nothing.  Except to make you more worried.

So move on and live your life.