“If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes.”

John Wooden

Do you choose to live a life based on risk minimization or risk management?

While initially there might not appear to be a lot of difference in these perspectives I firmly believe they are opposite sides of a continuum.

Risk minimization is a decision framework based on fear, avoiding something potentially harmful or damaging. Risk management is a decision path that is future focused, where you are intentionally seeking a path forward with the cognitive understanding that something might not happen as you exactly expect. Yet you know you will be equipped to deal with whatever happens because you are willing to think about it now and you aren’t willing to let it stop you or slow you down.

Risk Minimization: A fear-based approach to decision making and action that seeks to minimize any and all risks. The fear of mistakes, and the consequences of those mistakes, will be a driver of your actions, or a lack of action. A risk minimization attitude says “what are all the things that could possibly go wrong, and how do I avoid them?”

Risk Management: A future-based approach to life and decision making that prioritizes action and doing. You choose to make decisions with a clear understanding that not everything will go according to plan. However, with sufficient planning and an appetite for healthy risk, obstacles can and will be overcome. A risk management thinking style says, “what is the worst possible outcome of this decision or action, and how do I prepare for it?”

If you want to live life as a doer, a person that takes action and gets things done, then you must embrace a future-based approach to decision making and action. Risks simply need to be understood and managed, not avoided. Mistakes will happen and should happen. Not everything will go according to plan.

A mistake is nothing more than an opportunity to make a different decision based on better information than you had when you made your last decision. If you aren’t making mistakes then you aren’t trying hard enough and you aren’t creating opportunities for learning and growth. After all, what is the worst that can happen?