Intention

Take the Comfortable “Next Step”… Or Make a Quantum Leap?

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Posted on May 26, 2026

Most people go to their grave with a remarkable amount of unused potential. They have enchanting dreams that slowly die, heroic ambitions they never pursue. And studies show that, near the end of their years, people’s biggest regrets are what they didn’t do. Not what they did that failed.

William James, the “father of American psychology,” said this in the late 1800s, in the first psychological textbook ever published: 

“The human individual lives usually far within his limits; 
he possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use…
it is an inveterate habit—the habit of inferiority to our full self—that is bad.”

Something happens. 

When you’re young, you look toward the future with lusty naïve ambition. So much seems possible. You might be Taylor Swift. You might be an astronaut. Maybe another Steve Jobs or Tom Brady. But as author Steven Kotler says, “Then you get to an age when what you might be gives way to what you have been.”  You weren’t Swift, an astronaut, Jobs, or Brady. You settled for comfortable “next steps” instead of making quantum leaps. 

This is a stealthy process, this growing up and reducing ourselves to a life of self-imposed limits. It sneaks into our private world and makes us live smaller than we should.

Kotler, in The Art of Impossible, goes on to say:

“Each of us, right here, right now, contains the possibility of extraordinary…
when we push ourselves toward the edge of our abilities. 
Far beyond our comfort zone, that’s where we find out who we are
and what we can be.”

Ahh, yes. The comfort zone. The cozy route that seeks to bend clear of uncertainty, failure, and purposeful stress. The snug but inhibiting safe place. 

So commonly we opt for the next comfortable step instead of testing our limits. Rather than go for a quantum leap, where our creativity, energy, and quiet desires could take us, we shoot for a far lesser goal that’s reasonable and knowingly reachable.

We take fewer unreasonable chances. Which means we give ourselves fewer chances to achieve the great things we passively wish for.

Somewhere, gradually, we stop trying as we once did. When we were beginners, when we saw life accurately as holding so much promise, we pushed ourselves to leap into the unknown. We weren’t attempting to get it perfect. We were just “going for it,” discovering what we had within, challenging ourselves to grow into the goal. 

It’s time, now, to restart that youthful engine. 

I don’t care what age you are, or what constraints you think you have, or even what your unlived goals might be. Try differently! Try again like you did when you were a naïve and younger you.

Don’t drift into your later years looking backward at the glorious possibilities you traded for comfort or what felt safer. That’s a rotten trade.

[NOTE: AI was not used to write or edit this article.]