If you spend too much time listening to what most people tell you, it can often feel like we don’t have much room to make mistakes.
I know that’s how I’ve often felt. For most of my life, I was taught that you needed to do things a certain way – go to a good school, get a good job, stay on the straight and narrow. Failure to do that, I was led to believe, could lead to disastrous consequences. It’s no wonder that for most of my life, I played it safe and rarely did anything out of the ordinary.
I’m sure I’m not the only one that’s gone through life with this sort of mindset. You can see it all around us in the decisions we make. People stay in jobs they don’t like. They second guess themselves with their decisions and ultimately opt to do nothing. We’re taught from the first day of school to play things safe and stay in line. And if we step off the path for even a second, there’s no shortage of people who will tell us what a big mistake we’re making.
You can see this same sort of thinking even in the financial independence world. Opting for financial independence is seemingly a decision that gives you all of the safety and flexibility in the world. And yet, you’ll find plenty of people telling you that if you do it wrong or declare yourself financially independent too early, you’re doomed to fail and will ruin your life.
When you think about it, you can sort of see why this narrative is in place. The world wants you to be conservative and to play it safe. It wants you to be scared of trying to do things differently. It’s how employers get you to stick it out in jobs you don’t like, paying you just enough so that doing something else will be too scary. The world wants you to think that if you make the wrong decision, you’re going to ruin your life – so better to stick with the status quo and grind it out on the safe path instead.
The truth is though, as much as we all hate making mistakes, the mistakes we make really aren’t as bad we think they are. There are very few life-ruining mistakes. And if we realize this, it gives us a lot of opportunities to face our fears and do things that we might not have thought was possible.
Fear Setting – And Realizing That Most Decisions Won’t Ruin Your Life
One of the reasons we hold ourselves back, I think, is that we overestimate how big our decisions really are. A lot of us look at our decisions in terms of worst-case scenarios. We see a decision and imagine that if it’s wrong, it’ll ruin our life.
That’s how I thought about the idea of quitting my job. I knew that I wanted to do something else. Working for myself was what I wanted to do – but I had a lot of doubts too. If I made the leap and failed, it’d all be over. I’d never get a job again. Or at least that’s what I seemed to think.
But here’s the thing. There are very few things we can do that will ruin our life. Most of our decisions aren’t going to be life-ruining, no matter how bad we think things can get. For the most part, even if we make a mistake, we can always bounce back.
A way to get around this sort of irrational fear is to think about whether any decision really can ruin your life. Tim Ferris calls it fear setting – think of your nightmare scenario, i.e. the absolute worst thing that could happen as a result of your decision, and ask yourself, is that scenario really as bad as you think it is?
Let’s think about some potential worst-case scenarios and how realistic they really are:
- You quit your job to try to do your own thing. It doesn’t work out. Are you really going to end up homeless and never get another job again?
- You declare yourself financially independent, but it doesn’t work out. Are you really going to never earn another dollar again?
What you’ll find is that most of your worst-case scenarios are really more like a 3 or 4 out of 10 on the badness scale. It sucks, but you can bounce back. Very few are going to be – as Tim Ferris has eloquently stated – on the “holy shit, my life is over” level.
We’re All Human – And We All Make Mistakes
We’ve all heard this before. We’re human. We all make mistakes.
And yet, it often seems like few of us accept this fact. Instead of allowing ourselves to get into difficult situations where we might very well fail, we instead retreat into safety. After all, if we never take any risks or do anything where we might fail, we never have to worry about making mistakes.
I think one thing that really makes us fear making mistakes is the judgment and the “I told you so’s” that we often get from the people who don’t understand what we’re doing. Most people aren’t wired to do things outside of what people have told them to do. They’re definitely not wired to put themselves out there for the world to judge.
There are those of us that embrace our mistakes and those of us that don’t make mistakes because we never put ourselves in a position where we can fail. If you never fail, you never have to worry about the judgment and shame that comes from the mistakes. But you might miss out on what could have been too.
Mistakes are all part of the learning process. None of us starts at the top. We have to work our way up there and it’s the mistakes that we make that help us do that.
You Can Take Chances
To be sure, there’s nothing inherently wrong with playing things safe. But it can hold us back too, keeping us from doing the things that we might have been meant to do. There’s a lot of sacrifice in sitting in the middle, never really doing anything that puts us at risk.
I like to think my wife and I have taken chances in our lives. She went out and bought a practice directly out of school. Most of her classmates didn’t have the guts to do that. It came with a lot of risks, but what was the worst thing that could happen? She’d go bankrupt and then have to get a job working for someone else. That wouldn’t be a thing we’d want, but it wouldn’t ruin our lives.
The same is true of my decision to quit my job and make a go of earning a living writing online and side hustling. What was the worst thing that could really happen? I’d fail miserably, get laughed at by everyone who said it was stupid, and then I’d just go back to work. It’d suck, but my life wouldn’t be over.
Of course, this doesn’t mean recklessly jumping into our decisions either. I saved up a lot of money before I made the leap to self-employment. I also knew what I could do in my worst-case scenario. If I couldn’t make any money, I’d figure out a way to scrape by with my side hustles, then probably go back and get a regular job.
We’re all going to make mistakes. Decision-making is all about making choices with incomplete information. We don’t know the future, so the best we can do is make the best decisions we can with the information we have.
Very few of the mistakes we make will ruin our lives. Even our worst mistakes, in the absolute worst-case scenarios, are mere speed bumps in our life journeys.
Kevin is an attorney and the blogger behind Financial Panther, a blog about personal finance, travel hacking, and side hustling using the sharing economy. He paid off $87,000 worth of student loans in just 2.5 years by choosing not to live like a big shot lawyer.
Kevin is passionate about earning money using the sharing economy and you can see all the ways he makes extra income every month in his side hustle reports.
Kevin is also big on using the latest fintech apps to improve his finances. Some of Kevin's favorite fintech apps include:
- Personal Capital. One of best free apps you can use to monitor your portfolio and track your net worth. This is one of the apps Kevin uses to track his financial accounts.
- SoFi Money. A really good checking account with absolutely no fees. You'll get a $50 welcome bonus if you open an account and fund it with at least $500.
- M1 Finance. This is a great robo-advisor that has no fees and allows you to create a customized portfolio based on your risk tolerance. You also get $10 for opening an account.
Feel free to send Kevin a message here.
I agree. Although taking risks becomes much harder with kids.
We tend to find a way when our backs are against the wall.
As I slowly exit the online grind for early retirement life once there is herd immunity, it will be fun to watch you and others try and grow your businesses.
Sam
I agree that when the going gets tough, we often figure things out! Pretty amazing how most of us can make things work when we’re in a pinch.
I’m excited too! It’s been tough grinding it out for years and years. I think you’ve mentioned that if you can do anything for 10 years, you’ll make it, so that’s what I’m hoping to do.
That is one wonderful post! So many people fight to the death on every hill in life like everything matters. Their kid has to get in this one preschool, later this one college. Just look at the extremes parents went to in the college bribe and fake rowing team scandal. And we do this even though statistical studies show that the advantages gained by the best versus good enough are not that impressive in most cases. And if we don’t get this promotion, or this particular job life is over. I took a very safe path and it worked great for me but many of my coworkers did not flourish, some friends I encouraged to leave for their own good, and they excelled at the places they went next. And the most successful ones started their own businesses. Real risk taking involved for sure. But even if the next thing didn’t work out I’m almost certain not a single one of my friends is homeless and starving.
Risk is there – no denying that. But our worst-case scenarios rarely happen. We all overestimate it. Especially with money things. There’s always going to be another job out there for most of us I think.
Totally agree! At least, to the extent we’re talking about calculated risks and mistakes; as a criminal law attorney, I can give plenty of examples of mistakes that do indeed ruin lives. There are also plenty of mistakes that are less-than-calculated but that still work out. I probably shouldn’t have taken out obscene student loans, but it ended up forcing me to be a little more creative with my career choices and finances. I really believe that if we’re willing to bust our tails, life does have a way of working out.
Yeah, definitely some things that ruin lives, but it’s few and far between. And even prison doesn’t necessarily mean your life is over. My friend Bill over at Wealth Well Done is an example of how someone can bounce back from what is generally a life-ruining mistake.
There’s too much linear thinking in how the world should work.
The thought is that you have to go to private school, so you can get into a good college, so you can get a good job, so you can make a lot of money, so you can retire.
Things are never this simple and any good employer will appreciate perspectives that are outside of the “normal” path.
Get a nice financial base, and then take risks while you’re young. You’ll always regret it if you don’t.
I agree with that. I think a lot of us view life as moving in a straight line up. In reality, it’s bumpier than that. And that’s okay.
I needed to hear this today! It was perfect timing for me as I need a kick in the pants to make some moves I’ve been delaying. Even though I left the traditional corporate world a couple of years ago, and so aren’t exactly following the status quo anymore, these ideas are so ingrained in me that I often freeze when trying to make decisions and too often opt for the safe path.
Thanks so much for this post, Kevin! Love your insights.
Glad the post helped you in some way Marissa!
The risks and the “what ifs” are always greater in your head. I have left jobs that were secure to start new companies. At the time it seemed risky to some, but for me it was always a learning experience and a risk worth taking to reach FI. FI wasn’t even really my goal, but living life on my terms and without regrets has always made it easy to take these calculated risks.
Because as you say “Even our worst mistakes, in the absolute worst-case scenarios, are mere speed bumps in our life journeys. ” 100%
Even if things fail – which you inevitably will have failures – it’s never as bad as you might think it is. Life is short sure. But it’s also long too.
Everyone makes mistakes in life whether of omission or commission. The important part is learning from them and adjusting.
Exactly.
The concern for opinions of people we value stood out to me. At one of my jobs I was pretty sure I was being let go, and made a pro and con list. On the down side I was worried my parents would be disappointed. Neither was!! Both had seen how the job was making me so unhappy, and knew I’d bounce back.
In the field I work in, I reassure people because we’re not doing brain surgery, most of what we do is fixable, even if it means scraping a days work and doing it over to get it right.
My ex made a poor house flipping choice, changed jobs etc and while it may not have gotten him as far ahead as he wanted, but friends report he’s doing ok.
Most mistakes we can grow, learn, change from and keep moving forward.
You know, when I quit my job, I was also thinking much more of what people would think, rather than what I would think. The fear with mistakes (and perhaps why we think in worst case scenarios) is that we don’t want to deal with the judgment and “I told you so’s” from family and friends.
As humans, we can’t help but think about the worst case scenarios. We get so dramatic and think “wow, what if I can’t find a job again for the rest of my life?” I get that it was a biological advantage before to think about the worst case scenarios but there are very few decisions that will ruin our lives, anyway.
Gotta take the chance and go for it!
That’s how I approached my decision to try to have a go at it on my own. Worst case, I’ll go back to school, get a different degree, and hit the work force again. It’s part of my backup plans I gave myself.
Great perspective! Thanks for the reminder.
Glad the post was helpful!
People that write blogs might say, “even if I touch just one person…then it’d have been worth it.” Perhaps I’m that one person. I needed to hear this as I’m looking to make the first unsafe decision of my life and looking to take a real risk with my life. Fingers crossed!
Glad I could impact you Darrell! Good luck!
Many times, what seems like a large problem at the moment, will just be a blip on the radar ….even 6 months down the road. It’s happened way too many times and it’s all relative.