A leap of faith or leap of fate?

When you start your own freelance consulting, trainer, or coaching business you will know that what is often required is what is referred to as a ‘leap of faith’.

When business advisers and motivational books talk about taking a ‘leap of faith’ what do you think of? I think of it as the need to do something that I felt I just had to do, and although it would incur a risk of some kind it was a necessary thing to do.

Leaps of faith always reward you – even if they cost you in the short term. When I established my business – having previously been employed, it was scary but I knew I had to do it. When I decided to go to university, when I decided to get married these were also leaps of faith.

However, I also know some people who have taken similar 'leaps of faith' and it hasn't worked out for them. Also there are things I have done where I thought I was doing the right thing or taking the right ‘leap’ but it hasn’t worked out well.

So what’s this all about? Well, I think the important key here is understanding the word ‘faith’. Sometimes, when things aren't going the way we'd like them to, we'll latch on to anything in the hope that it will make a difference, turn things around. But mere hope without faith is what I call a ‘leap of fate’. I don’t believe in fate or blind determinism– I don’t believe there is a pre-planned destiny that we blindly embrace.. Yes, I am a person of strong religious faith and believe there is a plan for individuals but that individuals are also co-creators in that plan and what makes it work is faith. Faith is the surety that something is right and necessary. A leap of faith needs to be fed, nourished, supported and practised in order to produce results.

A leap of faith is a leap of strength but a leap of ‘fate’ is not. And this can be the difference between when our leap works out and when it doesn’t.

We make leaps of fate when we are overly vulnerable and afraid. I'm sure you have lots of examples, business and personal, where your judgment was affected by fear or a frustration with a current situation and an overwhelming desire to make a change in the belief that it was ‘right’.

So, from this position of vulnerability and fear, we took what we believe was a leap of faith... and it went wrong... A leap of faith is accompanied not with overwhelming vulnerability and fear (only a little vulnerability and fear, yes there is always some fear), but with - get the rest here www.consultancy-coaching.com