How risk averse are you and what’s that costing you?

One thing parents with kids with special needs experience, in spades, is ongoing grief. 

New losses keep popping up. 

New health challenges combine with more milestones missed… more out of reach opportunities… more dashed dreams. 

Some won’t be going to college when they’re 18… or getting married, ever… or…

When hopes and plans go south, we can focus on what went wrong or on what we need to do now. 

These parents are masters at taking next steps into the unknown. Living with the discomfort of uncertainty. 

• Risking “failure” isn’t a choice for them.

Some of us don’t make decisions —we procrastinate— because we’re not sure our plan will work. We’re unwilling to risk “failure.”

• But strivers don’t see “failure” as failure. 

They see it as a step in a direction they’re going. They took action and it didn’t work as expected or wanted.

They use each step as fodder for learning what they want and don’t want… what works and doesn’t... as a DIAGNOSTIC, pointing toward what to do next… as a stepping stone.

We often can’t “find the learning” in the moment. Strivers act on wisdom gained from retrospect. 

They iterate over time, reviewing and pivoting, continually, like airplanes on a long flight. 

Life has limited straight lines with all dots needed to get from Point A to Point B. 

This is especially true for parents managing a child with complex medical needs. They’re often aiming at a seriously moving target.

They know dots, or next steps, reveal themselves along the way. 

AND disappear mid-step, right when things seem to finally be under control… their kid dies right before he gets his lung transplant. 

Best laid plans require leveraging lessons learned while lowering expectations and judgment about how we’re doing. 

• Faith in our choices and vision is buoyed, knowing retrospect isn’t available in the moment. 

If you took that risk you’re procrastinating on —describe in your journal— what your new life would look like. Feel like. Be like for you and your family, your team, your community. 

 Now calculate the opportunity cost of NOT taking that risk. 

 —Julie