What's Your Reaction?

"You always get negative reactions. If you worry about that, you would never do anything."
- Tom Monaghan

I've heard it suggested before that as children we hadn't learned all of the negativities of the world that impact our daily decisions, and therefore we were more likely to explore things further without making up excuses on why we shouldn't. Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about pushing moral or legal boundaries, but rather pushing the boundaries of things by which we are intimidated. Many of us can think back to a certain situation where we had to make a decision on whether to take a risk and do something uncomfortable to our natural behaviors, and many of us probably chose the safer, more comfortable route. Watching my 6 week old daughter discover the world through her eyes and touch has reminded me that the world is full of wonder that many of us will never explore because of what we think we already know.

It's not uncommon to have to make tough decisions on a daily basis when you own a business. The fact that it's built in to the job responsibilities makes it a little less intimidating because it's just something that has to be done. However, for many of us in our professional lives there may be other instances where we get to decide whether or not to take action. We will immediately find ourselves making a list of the possible ramifications, then weighing whether or not we think the potential gain would be worth it. What if you didn't know all of the possible ramifications (which you don't, by the way), and what if the potential gain was much greater than you could have predicted? Many good entrepreneurs and successful professionals have gotten to where they are because they were not concerned about the negative reactions.

This concept may be more evident in our personal lives, where we find ourselves often making decisions based on what your friends may think, what your significant other may think, and now for me what other parents may think. As my wife and I navigate through life decisions that not only affect us, but also our daughter, we will make the best decisions when we don't try to guess the outcome or when we ignore what we think others would say or do. It's too easy to come up with a reason why not to do something in any situation and often times we don't know the true potential of why we should do something, so it's rarely a fair barometer to weigh the decision.

Although our own life lessons are useful to make better decisions moving forward, don't let the idea of negative reactions keep you from achieving something you really want, just focus on your own reaction. Remember, even not making a decision is going to elicit a reaction.