Today I flipped open “The Artist’s Way” and was struck by these words:

“So do it. If you win, you win. And if you lose, you win.”
It’s always that way with taking risks.
To put it differently, very often a risk is worth taking simply for the sake of taking it. There is something enlivening about expanding our self-definition, and a risk does exactly that. Selecting a challenge and meeting it creates a sense of self-empowerment that becomes the ground for further successful challenges.

These words were really timely for me. I think it’s true that challenges make us more alive, and that constantly avoiding them can become a kind of illness, a debilitating fearfulness that hides us from life, like turtle in its shell.

When we get convinced that things are “just too hard” we start to shrivel up inside. We set up comfort as our ideal but the worship of it makes us miserable. We feel incapable of anything different or new. We isolate ourselves and can become morbid.

Risk helps us break free from this cycle. It’s empowers us to recreate ourselves. Life becomes an adventure as we realize it contains new depths–that we also contain new depths, new possibilities.

It’s been said that each person is a universe unto themselves, and it’s exciting to know that we have unknown vistas to explore within. Maybe there is hidden courage and beauty we were unaware of, or had long forgotten.

Taking a creative risk opens ourselves up to the possibility of new things: our yes opens the door to unimagined blessings. Likely they were waiting for us all along, but required us to open our hearts to receive them.

So today I encourage you to examine yourself with a spirit of openness to new possibilities. What secret call has been sounding in your heart? What risk have you been too afraid to take?

Instead of focusing on the obstacles, which are always larger in our heads, think about how proud and happy you will feel if you take this risk and succeed, or even if you take it and fail. Courage is about facing our fears, instead of hiding from them…it isn’t about not having fears. To face your fears is brave, no matter what the result.

So be emboldened to take a risk, try something new, and break out of your routine. You’ll be surprised by the power within.