To slide or to take baby steps?
Yesterday I was on a jog in the woods. It’s been quite slippery the past few days as the weather has been a bit over zero celsius degrees. As I encountered ups and downs during the jog, I noticed that I had two main options regarding how I could climb down the slippery trail or how to climb up the hills.
Option 1: Take baby steps while going down and ensure safety, thus minimizing risk. This option was also the less fun out of the two. If the side of the trail was snowy enough to aid in friction that would be the better option than taking the baby steps down the slippery path.
Option 2: Take couple of running steps and slide down the hill. More fun but definitely riskier.
These two options got me thinking about how we approach risks in business and in life. We can either take the safe route with baby steps, thus maximizing our safety, mitigating the risk or we can take the risk and slide to our destination faster whilst having fun.
The first option surely offers control and predictability as we approach the challenge with baby steps and thorough analysis of the path ahead. This option is also slow in moving forward in our journey. Additionally, it forces us to focus immensely on the next couple steps ahead of us, making us stiff and probably a bit stressed.
The second option is riskier and could cause serious damage if the necessary precautions are not considered. At the same time, this option moves us a lot faster compared to the first option. Sliding down with speed forces us to adapt our balance and body posture. This kind of adaptability requires the body to move freely without tension.
Oh, and did I mention that sliding down is much more fun? That’s what I chose, because of couple of factors. Firstly, I know my physical capabilities and my limitations. Secondly, I have confidence in my physical abilities. Also, I did make a rough risk analysis before taking the slide down, where the return of the experience outweighed the calculated risk. Sliding down provided a functional challenge on top of the jog, which was a bonus.
What about going uphill? I had to come up with new routes as the same strategy would not work for the slippery hills. Which in itself offered another i nsight: The same challenge can be more enjoyable from a different approach, also we should not use the same methods and strategies to similar kind of challenges, depending on our positioning regarding the challenge.
If the risks are less than the potential new / fun experience, let’s take the slides to move forward faster, with less stress and with more enjoyment. Have a great week!