3 ways you can take more risks (even if you are not a risk taker)

I recently caught up with a previous work colleague I hadn’t spoken to in many years. They asked me: “Christina, this is so cool that you set up your company. How did you decide to do this?”

What I didn’t say straight away is how close I came to not doing it.

So I explained. How I was told by some people “It’s too early, you should have decades of experience.” But I still did it. How the first few months were tough. I had to learn how to market myself, and trust that my expertise has value.

I also didn’t jump blind. I gave myself a small runway, and a date to go back into employment if it didn’t work.

But I persisted, and stuck with taking this, what might seem to some people, career risk.

And during that conversation with my past colleague, I realised there were a couple of tools that helped me take that risk. That’s what I want to share with you today.

They can be helpful when you are taking on a role or project that is outside your comfort zone. Or, if in future, like me, you go consulting on your own.

What helped me were 3 things:

1. Spend time with people who take risks
 

I am not naturally a person who takes high risks. In fact, on every behavioural assessment I’ve done, my risk-taking preference comes out quite low.

So where did it come from?

I moved countries to study in the UK. Many of the people I lived and studied with came from cultures where taking risks is more normal than where I grew up. Conversations about setting up a business during or after uni were just part of everyday life - nobody questioned it.

And if you live with people like that, their approach becomes the norm for you too. So for me, it felt normal that at some point I would start something myself.

Research backs this up. Bandura, the psychologist who studied where confidence comes from, named four sources. One of them is watching people like you do the thing. He called it ‘vicarious experience’: You see someone similar to you take the step, and your belief that you can do it too goes up. (I have linked an article about Bandura’s research below)

Your next step: 

Become aware. What’s your own risk-taking preference? Do you like risks, or do you minimise them? Then look for environments where people take more risks, and find ways to spend more time with such people. Some examples: The colleague who just moved teams, a women-in-tech meetup, a friend who started a business.

2. Know roughly where you are heading
 

During the pandemic, like many people, I took a step back to think. Where do I want to go long term? What would excite me in my career? What do I want to be able to look back on?

Since then, I knew that at some point I would want to run my own business. It became a question of when, not if.

That gave me the confidence to say it’s worth it, no matter what I encounter on the way.

So when the first couple of prospects turned me down, I saw it as a chance to improve my pitch. I knew that skill was critical for what I wanted to do long term.

You don’t need a ten-year plan for this - a rough direction is enough.

Your next step: 

Reflect: What direction would excite me? What sort of role would I like to be in a couple of years? And does taking this risk help me get there?

3. Count the cost of standing still

We have a tendency to only look at the downside of doing something. We rarely look at the downside of not doing it.

Research explains why. In the 1990s, Gilovich and Medvec studied what people regret. In the short term, we regret the things we did. Over time, that shifts. The regrets that stay with us are about the things we didn’t do. (I have linked the study below.)

For me, the question was: what’s the risk of me not setting up by myself? That I never feel like I have the skills and experience and at some point it feels too late.

Let’s imagine an example you might have experienced: Say there’s a highly strategic and visible project that needs someone to lead it.

The risk of doing it: it might fail, and senior people will see. (And yes, there is evidence that women are judged more harshly than men when a visible piece of work goes wrong. Article linked below about the study of surgeons)

But it might also go well. And then it’s the thing that finally gets you seen.

The risk of not doing it: someone else takes it. They get the promotion and you stay the reliable worker bee that nobody notices.

Your next step: 

Take a piece of paper and make two columns. On the left, the cost of doing it. On the right, the cost of not doing it. Then ask: which one will I still regret in five years?

And if you are still not sure

Ask yourself one more question: what would make me more comfortable with this risk?

For me, it was that small runway, and a deadline to go back into work if I didn’t make it. That didn’t make the risk disappear - but made it small enough to take.

You don’t have to be a huge risk-taker - you just need to make the risk small enough for you to take.

The research I mentioned:

• Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy, including the concept of vicarious experiences is linked here.

• The research on what people regret you can find here.

• Women are judged more harshly - example of surgeons in this article here.