I painted again for the first time in 2 years last night. There is a particular artist whom I really enjoy and I attempted to replicate his style of oil painting. It was a disaster. At least, it started out that way. I had the canvas completely covered in paint and it resembled nothing like what I wanted. In frustration, I scraped the entire canvas and was going to throw it away in despair when I realized the scrapping had created a unique effect. Pallet knife in hand, I took another look at what I had before me and realized, just maybe, it could be salvaged. After another three joy filed hours, I looked back at one of my best paintings. It looked really good, but not great.

There is a fine line in art between breaking it and creating relative greatness. To leave it alone and not risk was to settle for less than I felt I could produce. I decided to risk.  Adding a stroke here, a highlight there, going back over an area I wasn’t quite happy with and in the end, I was so pleased with the results.

Life is like that. You can settle for pretty good and leave it alone, or you can risk and produce something really wonderful. Be it a conversation with a friend where you decide to risk and go there depper than you had before. Maybe it is at work and you know to play it safe would result in the mediocre and mundane results that churned out every day.  Instead, you go for it and create a game changer!

Weigh the risks, and when appropriate, go for it. Be it in art, love or life, I’ll bet you are surprised and excited by the results of going for what you really capable of.