80. Why you should take risks in your 20’s

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, or welcome back to the show, or welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world, I am so glad that you are here. Thank you for tuning in, Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Psychology of Your Twenties. This week, we're going to talk about something that is highly personal to me at the moment, and something that I have never spoken about on the show before, despite it being a massive part of my value set, despite it being a massive belief of mine, a massive ethos. And that is why we should take risks in our twenties, Why it is so important to step out of our comfort zone, to push the boundaries of what we think we are capable of, to just see what happens, to explore the possibilities that this life and this earth and this decade really provides us. This has been really on my mind recently. For those of you who don't know, I don't do this podcast full time. I have a job. I have a full time job. I work nine to five in an office, and that was until recently I have quit my job. I resigned, and it has really made me rethink my relationship with risk and reinforce how important it is to take advantage of the opportunity that this decade provides, and that is to make mistakes, that is, to really go out into the world and try as many things as possible. And I think it's important to note that it's not just me saying this from a personal perspective, but so much of the psychology and the science and the unconscious explanations that science provides us really justifies this, and it justifies this pattern of behavior to take control of your twenties and use it, and use this time, and use these opportunities to take risks and see what's out there. I think it's such a valuable decade for many reasons, one of them being that our twenties is so unique in that the only person when normally and I would say usually only accountable to is ourselves. We don't have children, most of us don't have mortgages. There are no looming responsibilities, I would say for most of us. Of course, there are instances in which people get houses young, or they have financial debt from taking out student loans, or they need to look after a parent who was ill. But I would say in general, this decade is defined, it is characterized by freedom. So I really want to explore that today, and I really want to encourage people through this podcast, through what I'm going to speak on, to take risks, to embrace being uncomfortable in this decade, to embrace the unknown. I want to talk about why it's absolutely crucial that during this decade we embrace the opportunity of freedom, we embrace the opportunity of being I think, not tied down. We're going to talk about identity, about unbounded versus bounded risk, existential dread as your friend end rather than your enemy, and about regret and how the psychology of regret actually should compel us to take risks rather than avoid them. Like I said, it's just such a pertinent topic for me. It's just so crazy how life works out. You know. The job that I was previously working was my dream job. It was the thing that I always thought that I wanted, and it kind of got to a point where I realized it wasn't my dream anymore doing this show full time, being able to have amazing conversations with people using this platform, that was my dream. And life changes in an instant and sometimes you need to really have the courage to grasp and grab and cling on to the opportunities that life throws you. I also think that because of the pandemic, because of COVID, a lot of us in our twenties lost valuable years to lockdown and to this disease that was running rampant across the globe and wanting to be safe. And we've had this realization that we've lost valuable years, valuable years of our twenties that we want to make up. And part of that is a reframing of our narrative and our perspective towards our lives to be more risk taking. So I really want to discuss and I want to break down all of the psychology, all of the science behind why it is that we should take risks in our twenties. I think a huge part of our twenties, a huge job that we have to do in this decade is figuring out who we are, figuring out what we want from our lives, figuring out our identity, and that doesn't always come easy. I think previously, in past decades and past generations, it was very easy to look in our lives in a very linear sense. You know, we graduated high school, maybe we went to university, we met someone that we wanted to have kids with, we bought a home, we had children with them, We worked till the age of sixty five, and then we retired and we were kind of done. And it's really interesting that a lot of people are pushing back against that narrative and pushing back against that conventional, traditional way of going about life. And part of that reaction and part of that pattern of behavior that we're seeing more of, is a propensity to take risk. More individuals are putting themselves out there and doing things that I think previously would have been not so much unacceptable but risky, would have been seen as a bit dangerous. And those decisions have become a lot more common and a lot more popular. It's so interesting to me to think about the people in my life, to think about the friends that I have who I have made the leap, who have made the decision to do things in an untraditional way, who have decided to travel, who have decided to put off going to UNI and do something, do something different, to explore their passions, and to move to different cities in different countries just to see what it's like. I think that those decisions are so valuable during this decade. I talk about this a lot on the show, But the reason why our twenties are so formative and so important is it's because when a lot of our identity is established, our brain does not fully develop until the age of twenty five. So that early part of our twenties, especially for the people between the ages of twenty and twenty five, that period is when your brain is still developing, and your brain is still fully forming to create the person that you are going to become. Part of that development is making decisions that you think are going to best impact your life. Those decisions, like I said, are not always going to be easy this decade, and I think especially this generation has been afforded with so many more opportunities. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago, about choice overload and about kind of being paralyzed by the decisions that we have to make in this decade. But often some of those decisions will involve risk, and that risk is sometimes calculated to be bringing us the best reward when it comes to kind of weighing up the benefits versus the costs of a risk, a risk that we want to take. There is this idea of utilitarianism that I think is really valuable. It's used and talked about a lot in philosophy, but I do think it still is really important when we talk about the psychology of our twenties. Essentially, the idea is that our brain will come to the most logical and rational decision for us based on an assessment of risk versus reward, or cost versus benefit. It's something to really consider, especially when we talk about making grand and exciting and risky decisions in our twenties. For example, deciding to quit your job to pursue your passion. Our brain will sometimes do this unconscious equation based on its own assessment of risk, in which it will weigh up the rewards or the expected benefits versus the costs is kind of the risk essentially, and it's really interesting because there are people who will look at a situation and their brains will automatically be risk adverse. Essentially, what this means is that they are less likely to take a risk. They are more likely to focus on the potential consequences or the potential downsides versus the potential reward. There are also people who are risk positive. This is the friend that you know who is always moving to a new city, is always prepared to quit their job at the click of a finger, always prepared to move homes, to travel the world, to do something that I think normally a lot of us would feel scared to do and would be I think hesitant to undertake. And then of course there are people who are risk neutral, who would see things I would say quite objectively. They weigh up the versus the rewards pretty evenly. And it's interesting to think about the people in our lives and the decisions that they make on this spectrum of risk adverse, risk neutral, and risk positive. It doesn't matter where you sit on this spectrum. Maybe you're thinking about those descriptions and being like, oh, I'm someone who's really risk adverse. This episode doesn't really relate to me because I'm not someone who likes to partake in risky behavior. But I do genuinely think that that doesn't really matter that it's not a question of determination. Regardless of where you sit on the spectrum of propensity to take risk, you can still be someone who is able to push themselves out of their comfort zone and it was able to grasp onto opportunities that may be scary, that may be terrifying, but also could potentially change your life. I love talking about the benefits of pushing yourself beyond where you are comfortable. And I don't mean in the sense of allowing people to cross your boundaries or pushing yourself to the point where you're in danger or where you're scared. But I see it more as this bubble right where we sit in this very secluded and I would say central and contained zone of being comfortable. And comfortability is amazing. But you cannot grow whilst being comfortable. It's just not possible because you're not providing your brain, or your identity, or just your general self with the opportunities to challenge yourself and therefore grow. Taking a risk that may potentially turn out bad, it may potentially blop in your face. Whatever you think the worst catastrophic outcome is, it could also turn out incredibly well. You could end up making the best decision of your life, not just on a whim, but in the face of all caution. And it's something I do genuinely believe. In the times of my life where I've grown the most, where I have seen the greatest changes in myself, in the quality of my life, in the quality of my relationships, in my overall happiness, have been after the periods where I've experienced the greatest fear, because I've been willing and I've forced myself to approach the unknown and not be scared of it but excited. There is an idea here that I really want to talk about, and it's the idea of existential dread. We've talked about this before, and I know that people will be thinking existential dread is really scary. It's about contemplating our mortality, how we are finite, how we really only limited time on this earth. It's about contemplating the fact that we will die and questioning our meaning and our place in this world. I think that's one perspective we can approach the finality of our life with fear, but it is also an incredible enabler and an incredible motivator towards taking that risk, taking a leap of faith. We can consider the fact that we are all only on this planet for a limited amount of time, that our purpose is not always provided to us. It's not always easy to understand that death is inevitable, and that realization can be really scary. That's existential dread. And as someone who has experienced that, I know how terrible it can be, and how consuming and overwhelming and exhausting it can be. But something that I realized is that by flipping that narrative, we can actually be excited by the prospect that what we do in this life really doesn't matter. And I know it's kind of depressing to suggest that and maybe a bit demoralizing, but what you do on this earth, it really doesn't matter. And isn't that the most liberating idea, the most liberating thought you can have, Because no matter how many mistakes you make, no matter how many risks you take that don't work out in your favor, the end is still going to be the end. We're all going to end up in the same place. So why not just take the risk? Why not just do it? You literally have nothing to lose, genuinely nothing. And I find that when I think about my life choices. In that sense, it makes it so much easier to make a decision that I am often very happy about in the future. I think essentially what I'm trying to say is that existential dread can be really scary, but it's also about perspective, and this whole episode is about why you should take risks in your twenties. And if you're listening to this thinking, you know, there's something that I really want to do. There's this risk that I really want to take. I really want to go and travel. I really want to text this person who I think that I like, and I want to see if they're interested in me. I really want to go and pursue my dreams. There is no reason why you shouldn't do that. There is absolutely none. Because your life is short, but your life is also valuable, and you are in charge of your destiny. If you take a risk and it fails, you're going to be in the exact same place at the end of the day as you will be if you didn't take that risk. We're all going to end up in the same place, but the thing that will be different is your quality of life. And the thing that will be different is your acknowledgement and your recognition that you gave it a go, that you tried it, that you are confident enough that you are willing enough to really invest in yourself and invest in the idea of what could have been and what will be. I think this really links to the idea of regret. Regret is something that I think we are all naturally very fearful of, and when we think about our future, we really don't want it to be defined by regretting the decisions that we've made. As humans, we are naturally opposed to uncomfortable and negative feelings. Regret is a pretty profound and negative feeling, So we have evolutionarily and innately become a species that wants to avoid situations in which we will experience this feeling, in which we will look back at our decisions and regret them. But regret is a really complex reaction and a complex Essentially, it's an emotional state that involves blaming ourselves for a bad outcome, feeling a sense of loss at what might have been, or really wishing that we could undo previous choices that we've made. When I talk to people about why they should take that risk, why it's important that they put themselves out there, that they push themselves beyond their comfort zone. A big thing that I often hear is what if I regret it? What if, at the age of seventy, I look back at the decisions I've made in my life and I'm filled with regret. It's so interesting to me that we can fear the potential emotional reaction that we may have to our current choices, because I just think that it's so multifaceted, like the fact that not only are we worried about our future, but we're worried about how we're going to feel in our future. There is no way of knowing that, and there's no way of knowing whether the decision that you want to make is going to lead to regret or whether it's going to lead to gratefulness and a sense of thankfulness that we did what we did, that we made the decisions that we did. I think regret, although painful to experience, can also be a helpful emotion, particularly when we're young. The pain of regret can really help us refocus and understand exactly what we want from our lives and what we want to do, because essentially it's our value system reacting to our decisions. It's our value set telling us I don't like where we are, I don't like the decision that we made for whatever reason, and I'm going to react against that. But the thing is that every time we challenge the way we think and we see the world, every time we challenge our value set, we reinforce it and we're better able to understand exactly what we want from our lives and we make the decisions that we do. Interestingly, I want to look at this study and I want to talk about this study that looked at regret. Importantly, it looked at people who had made risky decisions, who had taken a risk at some point in their life, compared to those who hadn't, and not only those who hadn't, but those who had been provided with the opportunity at some stage in their life to take the road less traveled to do something that was unconventional. Essentially, it looked at both these groups and it measured their level of regret in regards to this risky situation, in regards to this decision, and what it found I think is incredibly compelling and incredibly persuasive as to why we should take risks in our twenties. Essentially, what they realized was that more likely to regret the things you do not do than the actions you do take. Amongst these individuals, the people who actually displayed the highest levels of regret were the ones who didn't do anything about their dreams. It was the people who were inactive, the people who didn't make a decision. Whereas the people who did take a risk, who did decide to go out on their own or do something that was unconventional or untraditional, they were the ones who were not only happiest, but displayed the least amount of regret. And I think that is the most persuasive argument we can make when we talk about the psychology behind why we should take risks in our twenties. We can learn so much from the people that have come before us, and this study shows that most of the time, it's the people who didn't take the risk that are the ones who experience the most long term unpleasant emotional outcomes. Of course, that doesn't mean that you should take every risk that comes across your plate and that you should do anything that you desire and act on a whim. There are obviously some risks that are more calculated or more conservative or practical than others. And there are some that are just plane ridiculous, Like it's a risk to jump out of a plane having never skydived before. That's not a smart risk, right, It's not one that is practical. But there are some risks that we would call bounded. Bounded risks are great. The idea is that these type of risks, they have limited downsides but an unbounded upside. So essentially what that means is that it might cost you upfront. You know, you might have to invest time or money or potentially lose out on things like other opportunities, but there is no ceiling on the potential upside. Essentially, what that means is that although there is limited costs that will be incurred, such as having to quit your job or having to give up on other opportunities or invest a certain amount of time to get this idea off the ground, the benefit is that there is no limit on the benefit. These are the risks that you should take. I think about it in terms of this podcast. Right when I began it, I did have to invest some time in buying a microphone and setting up a platform and creating these episodes, but there was unlimited benefit, unlimited benefit that came from being able to do something that I loved and engage with people and share and converse and really follow my passion. In contrast, there are these ideas of unbounded risks. These are not so great. They're actually pretty terrible and not something that I advise many of us to take. These risks have no limit to how much you could potentially lose, so compared to bounded risks, in which really you get to control how much you lose, unbounded risks there is no limit. So no matter what the potential payoff, which is not unlimited, it means that you're probably going to lose out on something pretty valuable. I'd like to use this idea of jumping out of a plane, having never skydived before. There is no limit to how much you could potentially lose in this situation, the limit being that you die, the limit being your life, and the payoff is not that great. So when we think about it from that idea of utilitarianism that we were talking about before, or from a cost benefit analysis, the costs greatly outweigh the benefits. So it's important to be rational when we think about our approach to taking risks in our twenties. Of course, I think this podcast and what I've been talking about is very risk positive. I truly do believe that the most amazing growth will come out of the periods of greatest discomfort, where we really push ourselves and we really explore what's out there. But it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be silly about it, or that you have to completely abandon all logic. Taking a risk still requires judgment, and yes, there are people who are more likely to take risks, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you should. I would really encourage you to think through why do I want to do this? What is the benefit that I might receive? And there's this idea and I don't know where it comes from, but someone was telling me about it the other day, and I just have to say it here. When you feel that inspiration and that motivation and passion rising within you, compelling you to act, compelling you to speak, compelling you to do something, although it's intuition, I do think it's a good sign that you're ready to take the leap. But if you're very nervous, if logically it doesn't make sense for you to do this. Maybe think about it a little bit more, maybe sit back, contemplate the outcome, the potential outcomes, but don't spend too much time in that place. Like I said, and like that study revealed, if you're worried about regret, if you're worried about your future, if you're worried about whether you'll look back and really doubt yourself and criticize the decisions that you've made, the chances are that you won't, because the people who experience the most regret are not those who made the decision, that those who didn't. I know this was kind of a emile episode, but I really do hope that if you have listened this far, that you enjoyed it. It was something that's just been really playing on my mind recently, something that I've been thinking about. You know, I've made this massive decision in my life. I really hope that it was the right decision and make me This episode was just me trying to convince myself that it was and to really look into the idea of taking risks and regret and provide myself with the validation that I needed. But I do genuinely think that it's an incredibly valuable conversation to have in our twenties. This decade is just so amazing, and I do truly believe that it's our gateway to so much freedom and so much opportunity and experiences. But you have to be prepared to take it. You have to be prepared to really grasp on to what has afforded us and provided to us in this decade, and that means taking a risk sometimes. So I hope whoever is listening this episode has really inspired you to take a risk, to do something unconventional, to follow your dreams and your passions and your hobbies. I just think it's one of the best decisions that we can make, and the studies kind of prove it as well. So many of the ideas in psychology and in this discipline explain why it's important that we make these decisions when we're young, at this age. So I just want to thank you for listening, thank you for coming along this ride with me. I also want to say none of this would be possible without the support of you, my listeners. It's just insane to me that I've gotten to this point. It's so crazy and wild that I'm able to do the thing that I love most all the time, and I do genuinely love it. I think there is so much valuable information in psychology that we can share and explore as fellow twenty year olds. So I want to say thank you for enabling me to be able to pursue this. It's just it really is mind blowing. I don't think words could ever properly capture how grateful I am. And if you did enjoy this episode. If you enjoy this show, please feel free to leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify wherever you're listening right now and share it with a friend. Maybe your friend is going through a period of indecision where they need to decide whether to take the road less traveled, so share it with them. Maybe they would benefit. And if you want to stay connected, if you want to be involved in the community, please feel free to follow us at that Psychology podcast. Message me if you have any episode suggestions, Just stay in touch. 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