An observation I’ve made in my own life and with my clients is a lot of people think they value freedom, but they secretly don’t.

They think Freedom means doing whatever you feel like and having lots of options and lots of time available.

But the truth is what they really value is Safety and that’s how they behave. Doing whatever you feel like and trying to keep all options open actually creates a prison of instant gratification seeking and indecision.

Safety and Freedom are the complete opposite things – two opposing ends of a spectrum, you can’t have both.

Freedom is where you dial responsibility, risk-taking, and leadership all the way up to 10, and you dial safety and comfort down to zero. You make bold choices and follow through on your decisions, eliminating options and delaying gratification.

Freedom is actually decidedly uncomfortable. Freedom means you have no idea where you’re going. You’re the leader, you cut the path rather than follow the path laid out for you.

Things often don’t go “well”. You take lots of risks, you fail often. That’s the price of Freedom.

So if you really value Freedom, your life should be quite uncomfortable.