All of us have fears. Some of them are inherited (a job means stability, entrepreneurship is risky), others are conditioned (if you don't do better than others, you're failing), some are founded (walking around without a mask could give you covid:)) while others are unfounded (vaccines cause your bellybutton to explode).
It doesn't matter what the source of our fears is. They're real. And scary. And paralysing.
There is a solution. And it is pretty damn intuitive.
As human beings, we are prone to avoiding loss. A ton of research has shown this. What does loss aversion mean? It means that if I gave you a bird in hand and two in the bush, you'd likely hold onto what you have vs. losing it to gain more.
In order to tackle our fears, we can hack this loss aversion. The key question to answer is:
WHAT IS THE COST OF INACTION?
What does this mean? Well, if you were to stay still, be stagnant, what do you stand to lose?
Zayd and I are planning to move to Portugal from Singapore. We've gotten cold feet a couple of times. Yet, when we consider what the cost of inaction is, we realize how much we stand to lose.
In order to stay here beyond a point, one of us will have to get a full time job because visas aren't easy for small businesses in our space and it is expensive to live here. That person will likely be me because Zayd is allergic to organizations and breaks out into meeting induced hives:). If I have to get a full time job, I'll be resentful. Then we'll argue. At some point we might give up on our business and our relationship... That would suck. The cost of inaction is pretty high.
Now, that was a simplistic example. But just the thought of what I might lose in terms of freedom and what we might lose in terms of our relationship, spurred us to take action on our decision to move to Portugal. That's the power of estimating the cost of inaction. It moves you to action.