Millennials, Fear Of Taking Risks Will Hold You Back. Six Ways To Uptick Your Risk Quotient.

Anyone who has ever immigrated from another country or created a startup understands that risk-taking is critical to move forward in life and your career. Your grandparents took risks. Your parents took risks. Yes, we have typified Millennials as lazy, entitled, poor communications skills and hopelessly enamored with technology. We know most of these characterizes are generalizations and probably not true over time. And yet, unfortunately, the millennial “children” are boasting another characteristic that is damning them in the professional world: risk-aversion.

While playing safe in your professional career has a number of benefits, not taking risks is the best way to embrace mediocrity. You may not help stimulate the economy, you may not innovate new things and you definitely may not push for rapid changes in the way you live. But honestly, who can blame you? Millennials have grown up in a culture of economic turbulence, corporation corruption, and more student debt than ever.

The main take away from the millennial risk-aversion issue is that it sacrifices safety for greatness. Taking risks is the best way to find out what doesn’t work, leading the way for what does. What’s worse than not taking risks? it’s the fear of a dull corporate office job, not failure, that worries quite a few of Millennials.

So how can you purposely learn how to take more risks? The key is to understand that you may need to learn “how” to take risks. You don’t want to be an impulsive or reckless risk taker. You do want to become an effective risk taker. There’s no sure thing when you take a risk in your career. But when you gain knowledge and experience, you can reduce the out-of-control feeling of too much risk. You may have to push yourself beyond your comfort level to try new things. But you can become an effective risk-taker. Chances are, both you and your career will benefit as a result. Perhaps, you will even take a step toward becoming an entrepreneur.

Here are six things you can do to increase your ability to take effective risks:

1.Acquire Knowledge

Fear is what holds most of us back. If you are in a job you don’t like, you might not quit because you fear what comes next even more. That’s crazy. Do some research, talk to friends and a mentor and make a move. Being happy is more important than being afraid.

2. Have a Mentor

Who do you talk to and trust when you have career concerns? Who has the experience or expertise to actually give you critical career advice? A mentor. If you don’t have one, cultivate and cherish a mentor.

3. Change Your Pattern

One key way to embrace gentle risk is to change your pattern of life in as many ways as you can. Drive a different way to work. Eat a new type of food each month. Go to a venue you would not normally go to, a museum, a park, a new store. The more you make slight changes in your life that usually have little to no consequences, the more adept you might be at handling risk for he important decisions.

4. Develop Your Expertise

You know who this person is in a company. Everyone talks about if they ever left or got “hit by a bus,” the department or company would be in serious trouble. Well, you should become that person. Gain additional expertise in your field through a course, seminar, workshop, certificate, etc. Experts get more choices and opportunities and usually better career options.

5. Trial and Test

There are things in your career that you should look for that are kind of a simple “trial and test.” This might be a small project, a client meeting, a simple presentation that you would normally avoid. Pick one of these, be prepared and do it well. The confidence you gain will help you to take more small risks.

6. Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

Humans can be creatures of habit. The problem with that in a professional career is that we don’t often add new knowledge or learning, we just repeat. Gather new knowledge by meeting people not in your area of expertise, by traveling to a place you have never been before and by doing something new. Afraid of public speaking? Take a public speaking seminar. Address a weakness you have and commit to neutralizing it in the next 90 days.

Source: Forbes