You miss all the shots you don’t take.

“You miss all the shots you don’t take.”

I saw Wayne Gretzky’s philosophical musing written on the sandwich board, outside the cantina up the street.

And although I like to imagine the cantina folks as my wise messenger friends from the universe, I think they were actually just trying to sell tequila shots to the students in the hood. (Or maybe they’re doing both?)

It’s like the adage nothing ventured, nothing gained.

And yet so often we don’t venture and we stay exactly where we are.

We stay stuck or safe… and things stay the same.

This is great if your business is perfect, making exactly as much money as you’d like, while providing you heaps of pleasure and freedom. (If that’s you, keep rocking it!)

But if that’s not where you’re at, then you’ve got to wonder….

What would happen if I just took a chance? What if I just took a shot at something?

You might just make it!

Now the other side of that optimistic vision…

Sometimes your idea, what you’re contemplating doing, is SO FAR OUT of your comfort zone (or knowledge zone or competency zone) that the likelihood of taking that shot and making it are slim.

You know this, so you don’t take the shot.

I get that. It’s logical and rational. It makes total sense.

But what if you still took a shot at something… but maybe that something was a little more do-able, a little closer to your current zone of knowledge, competency, and comfort?

You’d be PRACTICING. (As in, the years of practice before the big game and the big shot.)

It would be a practice in expanding and stretching yourself, in taking risks, albeit small ones, in getting started and moving in the right direction.

It would also be a practice in trying and failing. (Yup, failing but NOT dying.)

And, MOST IMPORTANTLY, it would be a practice in making it.

Because eventually, with enough practice, you’ll make that shot.

And then you’ll make the next one and the next one. You’ll also miss some, but that’s okay, because now you know, that with practice you’ll make more and more of your shots. And you’ll have more and more success.

But if we don’t ever take that risk… We miss ALL the shots we don’t take.

All of them.

So answer me this…

What shots are you not taking in your life and in your business? (Honesty goes a long way here.)

What kind of practice shot can you take right now? (Don’t skip this. Really, what could you try right now?)

Are you going to take that shot? (Decide. Because you know… you miss all the shots you don’t take.)