Considering risk and reward
Added Thursday 30.07.2009
I recently came across an interesting youtube clip weighing up the costs of inaction and action regarding climate change. It got me thinking about the choices we make in life and whether we consider risk versus reward often enough.
Sometimes it is a good idea to think about risk as it can help us to overcome obstacles or fears. When was the last time you asked your boss for a raise? What could possibly happen if you do? If you are working hard how can asking to be rewarded for your efforts be harmful? If you really are working hard then you should rightly be rewarded. ok, if you don't think you are good enough maybe you are underestimating yourself and again what can the harm be in asking? Maybe you don't do a good job, then you have just identified an area for improvement - What are you going to do about it? What are the risks in arriving 5 minutes early or working that little bit harder? What are the rewards? So you have to way up the risks and rewards.
Most importantly you have to do the weighing up in the first place. How can you make the decision to take a possible small risk for large gain if you haven't even realised the risk and reward in the first place. You need to step back from you situation, thinking about things looking back at yourself from another perspective. What would you like to be doing right now? What things would you like to achieve? Think about the things you would need to do in order to get there or achieve that goal. Identify the risk and rewards for these things. Sometimes the journey requires little effort but perhaps seems overwhelming until we seriously consider it or start on the path to find it.
Improving you mental ability can be done by thinking about things you wouldn't normally think about - stimulating and exercising the brain to keep it agile and ready for action. It's not hard. Take the benefits.
Life is about taking risks, this is a very simple concept. Learning French, going bungee jumping or starting your own business there are risks involved. Sure, you may have to part with a few dollars but money comes and goes where as experiences stay with you forever - to me that seems like relatively small risk for quite a large gain. There is little risk doing the same thing every day, zero more than the risk you had the day before - for what reward? If you could spend a little more risk to possibly achieve a big reward would you take it? Is it gambling if the odds are stacked in your favour? Where does this apply in you life? What opportunities are available to you that you haven't yet taken? Some are more obvious than others. Hypothetically if there were a lotto ticket (with normal odds) that only costs $0.01 with a jackpot of one million dollars that would be little risk for big reward, but not necessarily good odds. What about if there was a lotto ticket costing $1000 with a 80 percent chance of winning only $2000 - more risk, smaller reward but the odds are quite good.
The risk, reward, and odds can change but it's all about making the smart decision. You can improve your situation by having a better understanding of the odds and playing them to your favour. What opportunities can you take that are stacked in your favour?
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