The Biggest Risk Is Staying Where You Are

Are fear and impatience keeping you stuck?

In this episode of Brave Moves, Julie DeLucca-Collins explores why the biggest risk in life is often not failure—but staying where you are. Julie discusses fear, comfort zones, risk avoidance, confidence, personal growth, and why waiting for certainty can quietly steal your joy and potential.

This episode is for anyone who feels stuck between where they are and where they want to be. If you've been postponing a decision, delaying a dream, or waiting to feel ready before taking action, this conversation will help you rethink risk and embrace growth.

In This Episode:

•  Why staying comfortable can become costly 
•  The psychology of risk avoidance 
•  How fear keeps people stuck 
•  Why confidence follows action 
•  The hidden danger of impatience 
•  How growth happens in the messy middle 
•  Why meaningful change requires courage 

Key Takeaway

Playing it safe may feel comfortable today.

But avoiding the life you're meant to live is often the greatest risk of all.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What if the biggest risk in your life isn't failing? But what if the biggest risk is staying exactly where you are? And I think most people spend their lives trying to avoid risk. And we tell ourselves, I'll wait till I'm ready, I'll wait until I have money, I'll wait until the timing is better, or I'll wait until I feel more confident. And while we're waiting, life keeps moving. Opportunities pass, dreams get delayed, and your confidence shrinks. And slowly what felt safe starts to become a cage. Now, before we dive in, my friend, if you enjoy these conversations, please subscribe and leave us a review if you haven't already done so. And I so appreciate you being here because our show is becoming this wonderful family of individuals who are taking small brave moves every day. And you are a part of it. So thank you again for being here. Now stay with me to the end because I'm going to share why fear and impatience work together to keep us stuck and how to know whether you're protecting yourself or limiting yourself. Now, one of the biggest mistakes we make, friend, is assuming that staying put is a neutral move. Well, it's not. Every choice has a cost. Even the choice to do nothing costs you something. If you're unhappy in your career and stay, there's a cost. If you're in a relationship that no longer is healthy and you're staying behind because you figure this is the best thing to do when you don't know what to do, there's a cost. If you're sitting in your dreams or a business idea or the book that you want to write, or maybe there's a big audacious goal to go and climb Kilimanjaro. Well, when you never begin, there is a cost. You know, the problem is that we see risk and action, but we rarely calculate what the risk is when we are in inaction. Now, your brain is designed to keep you safe. We've talked about this, and I know that you know that, but not fulfilled, right? Safe, which means your brain often prefers familiar, even though it's disappointing. The familiar becomes that frenemy that we love. And over unfamiliar possibility, our brain is saying, nope, nope, unfamiliar. I don't want it. And sometimes we choose situations we know are not working because, well, they're predictable. And at least we know what to expect. The devil we know. And these situations are at least comfortable or at least are familiar, and yet comfort can become incredibly expensive for you and for me and for anyone who stays there. Now, here's the confidence trap. People often tell me, Julie, I just need more confidence. And then I know that I can knock it out of the park and I can go out after all of the things that I want to do. And I shake my head because confidence doesn't magically appear before action. Confidence is built because of it. Every brave move you've ever made started with you feeling uncertain, unsure, not confident. And the confidence, well, it comes later after action, after evidence, after you prove to yourself that you could survive the discomfort. I have talked about the time that I went on a ropes course. And boy, was it hard. Was it hard to climb up this 100-foot pole and get to the very top, stand on a little platform and be terrified out of my bejeebies. And when I finally took the leap and jumped from this high pole, even though my palms were sweaty, my knees were shaking, my breath was short, I knew that I needed to teach myself to be in that moment because I was safe. I was on a harness, someone was gonna be there, and I needed to trust myself enough, just like you do in life, when you see something and you're not sure you can do it, and you're feeling all the feels, jump toward the uncertainty of it because it gives you the evidence that, hey, I did that, I've come this far. Now, again, confidence is not going to show up unless you take action and you find that evidence. Now, the other enemy that we have is impatient, my friend. And oh my gosh. Okay, where I am more prone to take, you know, these leaps, I am less prone to be patient. I am not a very patient person. And I think that God and the universe is trying to teach me patience every single day because fear tells us not to start, but impatience tells us to quit. And honestly, I think impatience is one of the most overlooked success killers. And we live in a culture that wants instant results and instant followers and success and instant transformation. But meaningful growth takes time. A garden doesn't bloom overnight, a business does not become profitable overnight, a relationship doesn't become strong overnight, confidence doesn't develop overnight. Yet people often abandon the process because the results have time. And when it takes time, they don't believe that they're going to come. I will tell you, I have a client who just did a major workshop and it was phenomenal, because she is phenomenal. And as we were in the process of launching this workshop and she was going to be teaching these wonderful concepts, she struggled because she wanted things to be done. She wanted everything to be perfect. And in the meantime, she was ready to throw in the towel because the results of her getting clients from this workshop was not happening fast enough. And my friend, this happens to many of us. A lot of times we go to the gym and we don't see results right away, so we stop going, or we're in the diet and the scale goes up, and then we're like, oh, forget it. Might as well have that cheeseburger, right? A lot of us give up on our dreams because of the impatient. And I'm gonna tell you, the process is what teaches you the destination, the byproduct, the result is really the cherry on top. Now, I want you to think also, what if you're closer than you think? One of the saddest things is watching people quit during the messy middle. And for me, I see this all the time, not only in the lives of others, but at times I have to watch myself quit in the middle of something because I'm not where I want to be. It feels hard and the results are not visible. And the doubts, you know, when you're in that messy middle gets so loud. And that's exactly where growth is happening, where we are learning to acknowledge the doubts and say, I hear you, brain, but I'm still doing it. Or I don't see the result, but I'm knowing that I'm moving forward. You know, underground, invisible, all of these things that are going to blossom are happening when we don't see them. And just because you can't see progress doesn't mean that progress isn't happening. Like I'm not good at patience. I I said that, right? When I started to plant my roses, I realized that I wanted them to grow and blossom fast. And they weren't. And I thought, oh my God, see, I don't think I can do this. And the bottom line is that I stayed the course. I went ahead and I continued to prune and I continued to water and I continued to fertilize and all of these things eventually, when I was least expecting it, there was that first rose. And I felt so proud of myself. I felt so happy that I had actually gotten a result from sticking through the process. You know, and the biggest thing, my friend, is that we thrive when we are in that messy, when we are in the doing. We're human beings. Being is the thing that we should really get to doing. So now, here's the truth, friend. Many people think that avoiding risk in life is the thing to do. But what they're actually doing is choosing a different risk. Sometimes when we don't choose and we stay stagnant, we risk uh regret, stagnation. We risk unrealized potential or the missed opportunities that we choose not to take and we walk away from, or we risk becoming disconnected from ourselves. And honestly, that's a risk I'm less willing to take as I get older because time is precious, too precious to spend waiting for certainty. The life you want is often hiding on the other side of the conversation, of the decision, of the application, of the launch, of the boundary, or the step you were afraid to take. Now, here's your brave move for today, my friend. Ask yourself, what am I avoiding because it feels risky? And then ask, what is the cost of staying exactly where I am for another year, another day, another week, not another week. Don't let another month, don't let any more time go by before you start to evaluate what am I avoiding that feels risky? And what is the cost of it? And in closing, my friend, fear will always give you reasons to stay. Growth will always require movement. And while we're not in a place where life is guaranteed to any of us, the person you're capable of becoming will never be discovered by standing still. So take a deep breath, make the call, apply for that TED talk, have the conversation, plant the seed. Who knows? Because the biggest risk isn't failing, but the biggest risk is never giving yourself a chance to grow. And that is your brave move.