Jump!- Why Taking The Leap Is Your Logical Next Step
Not an irrational and emotional act.
A few days ago, we had a thunderstorm warning on our island.
During the night, there was heavy rain and a howling wind coming in from the sea.
I could hear the waves crashing on the beach.
The next morning, everything was calm again. As I looked out of the window, the sun was shining and big puddles had appeared on the street.
Perfect! I exclaimed as I slipped my toddler’s feet into his rubber boots. My toddler loves to play in the puddles.
As I watched him collecting stones of all sizes, joyfully throwing them into the puddles, curiously figuring out what happens when he does, one thing became clear to me.
The reason why children are so valued is that they live in the very moment, and as adults, we imagine all the future opportunities they have.
It seems as if every life path is open to our little ones.
As my boy leaped joyously in and out of the puddle, I thought to myself how brave he was.
He doesn’t know how deep a puddle is, if it’s muddy or not, if he’s going to get wet or not.
He just jumps and has fun.
There seem to be better reasons not to take that leap
Did you know that, as adults, we make around 35,000 decisions per day?
Whereas a child goes through the world with curiosity, an adult is expected to make every choice with analysis.
Especially when it comes to important life choices. When determining whether or not to take a leap, there seem to be better reasons not to take that leap than to take it.
It feels risky:
Why quit my comfortable 9–5 job for a risky move into online entrepreneurship?
Oftentimes, taking the leap is seen as an irrational thing to do
When I told our family and friends about starting our digital nomad life, growing our online businesses, and moving to a beautiful island, some said:
Have you thought this through? It doesn’t seem very practical. You’ve just had a baby — isn’t that rather counterintuitive?
As if what we were doing was an irrational act.
No one said:
It’s great that you’re taking a leap of faith and making your dreams come true — today instead of tomorrow.
You never know what the future might bring.
If I had told them I would be taking such a leap in a professional setting, let’s say, leaving my day job as a Brand Manager and climbing the ladder to become a Head of Marketing, they would have said:
Congrats!
That’s the perfect, logical next step for you.
Benefits vs. concerns of making the jump
In one respect, they were right.
We do have a big responsibility — our two-year-old puddle enthusiast.
So, we didn’t exactly make this decision lightly — of course, we did a cost-benefit analysis in our heads. And you can do the same.
Let’s switch from my personal island story to your life.
Say you have a corporate job that’s ‘okay’. At the same time, you’re working in the evenings to build a side hustle of your dreams.
It evolves and one day you:
have a big audience
earn decent money — but still not enough to quit your 9–5
Meaning, you have one foot in the corporate world and one foot out in the entrepreneur world.
You wonder whether you can go all in, take the leap, and jump.
Chief Concern:
How can I make a solid living from this?
Benefits:
spending every day doing the things that matter to you
having freedom
being your own boss
meeting other like-minded writers/online entrepreneurs
Keep in mind that those benefits are just a few that immediately popped into my head.
I’m sure YOU could add a lot more benefits to this list.
Here’s the clue:
While you can easily anticipate the concerns of making the leap of faith, there is no way to anticipate the countless rewards and opportunities that will await you after you’ve dared to actually make the jump.
When you think your major concern is manageable and no responsibility is holding you back, why not take the leap of faith?
The rewards are unbelievable
I leaned towards faith and now I’m happy living my life in the so-called ‘German Hamptons’.
Within a few days, the rewards outweighed any concerns we might have had.
You have to feel it. You have to do it. You have to live the life you want.
We’ve learned that our former concerns are manageable.
And looking back, we regret not having taken this leap of faith earlier — before we had a child.
Our lessons learned:
You can’t forecast your future life.
The most logical thing to do is often to actually take the leap of faith.
Final Takeaways
One’s potential is not a tangible good. Still, no one would deny it exists.
The idea of reaching one’s potential and fulfilling one’s dreams is deeply rooted in all of us.
When I watch my toddler play in the puddles, I really hope he’ll be able to take that curiosity with him into adult life.
Even when he starts analyzing the pros and cons of a decision, I hope he can remember the thousands of leaps of faith he made and the rewards he received from doing so.
As the water splashes and my boy triumphantly shows me another little stone to throw into the water, I know for sure.
Taking the leap is not an emotional act. It’s the most rational move we can make.
It has to be done if a person is going to grow. I wish I had taken more leaps of faith when I was younger. I enjoyed your story.