Jump In. Or Don't.

Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash

Is it that we don’t believe we deserve to be ambitious? Or is it the fear that we are likely might fail?

Which one explains why we don’t wholeheartedly commit? Which one explains why we become “dabblers” - just dipping our toes in the water but not really getting wet? 

Something stops us from committing ourselves, which seems a worse fate, to me, than even trying in the first place. We pretend to engage, to get involved and take on the goal, but really we’re not. 

Maybe we don’t believe in the mission. 

Maybe we believe in the mission but worry about our collective ability to get there. 

Maybe we worry about our personal ability to deliver. 

Maybe we just don’t want to fail and look bad. 

The problem with all of these reasons, of course, is that we’re in no man’s land. It’s not getting us to where we need to go, and it’s stopping us from putting our time into something else that we do wholeheartedly believe in. We’re just wasting time.

There is no middle ground. Either we jump in, or we don’t. You can’t get a little bit pregnant. 

H/T to Seth Godin for this riff.