I have known and worked with many people over the years who have taken a leap of faith and landed in very shallow water. We often hear, “go for it…nothing ventured nothing gained…”. While I believe that this is true, what is often not said is that it is necessary to do one’s homework. A leap of faith is fine and dandy for something that is an essentially sure thing. There are other things that come along about which we may feel passionate but wisdom and good sense would dictate that research should be done prior to taking the leap. In my own life I experienced failure because I had the passion but I didn’t do the homework.
During my years on a medical school faculty I became increasingly interested in biofeedback. As a psychologist with an undergraduate background in biology I was very interested in developing this as an area of practice. On a leap of faith, I decided to go to a training program. The program was very good and I learned a great deal. It stimulated further interest and I felt the passion to increase my competency in this new (to me) and interesting treatment modality. Fueled by this passion, I took a leap of faith and purchased a very expensive biofeedback software package. This was the program that I learned on in the training and I began to try to develop more skill and facility in using this package. As time went on and I began to try to make this new treatment modality known to others on campus, I expected that I would be flooded with referrals. I was wrong. I received very few referrals and many of them ultimately did not follow through. I was very disappointed and continued to try for a while. I began to find that insurance companies often did not cover biofeedback services. I found out that I might have been able to get all or part of the cost of the software package paid for by my academic department. After a while, I became very discouraged and with no patients for this modality, my software package fell into disuse.
I felt a great sense of failure and a bit foolish. I learned that taking “a leap of faith” without use of frontal lobe cognition abilities may not always be the wisest choice. I had always tended not to be much of a risk taker and this confirmed all of my fears about acting. As time has passed and I’ve had time to reflect, I see that the leap of faith wasn’t the problem; it was the lack of proper research and investigation about the market. I thought of many questions that I might have investigated had I not decided that it would be prudent to take a swan dive into an unknown lake. I learned a lot from that experience.
In 2000, I began to feel disillusioned with the academic medical center. I was feeling more and more dissatisfied and it was increasingly clear that I would not be able to enact some of my plans and dreams there. We had always wanted to move to Vermont and the time had never been right. This thought began to take hold. At first, I asked myself why I would leave a relatively secure job with a good salary for a wildcard, especially after having taken a “leap of faith” in the past with the biofeedback and experienced failure. Would I put our retirement and savings at risk by making such a move?
I began to think about this move as the potential fulfillment of a lifelong vision to live a simpler life in a beautiful, pastoral setting with 4 distinct seasons. I had learned the value of research and doing my homework. My partner and I decided to think about what we need to know so that we can make a reasonably good choice. We did this…we took about 18 months to figure out details, fully aware that we wouldn’t be able to think of everything, but allowing for this level of discomfort. We moved from Texas to Vermont in April, 2001 and I will never leave here. It is the place I have always dreamed of. It is home. Over seven years later, I still feel a deep sense of gratefulness for my place here and I appreciate the beauty of it and the wonderful people we have met here every day.
Was it risky? Certainly, but we covered the bases of things that were important and allowed the rest to be unknowable. It was still a leap of faith because no matter how much planning one does, there are things that can’t be accounted for. We can’t control all of the many variables that would affect us.
Perhaps you or someone you know is at a crossroads. As a Life Coach I work with motivated people who want to make important decisions to live the life that they want to live. I collaborate with people to help them envision the lives they want and to create a life they might not have imagined possible.
Filed under: Uncategorized
