Changing your job or going freelance, downhill mountain biking, cave diving or white-water rafting all involve a risk. So does investing in the stock market, having major heart surgery or going on a blind date. Letting out your home through Airbnb is a risk, as might be travelling in another country on your own or simply going to a café alone.

One way or another, they all expose you to the chance of something going wrong.

Although you might be attracted to a new opportunity – participating in an extreme sport, taking on new responsibilities at work, for example – you worry whether it will be worth the risk, whether things will actually turn out well. You know there's a chance that things will go wrong; there are potential hazards and you could lose out in some way. You're not sure you'll be able to handle the responsibility, stress or consequences that come with taking a risk.

But you take a risk every time you start reading a book you've not read before or a book by an author that's new to you. You take a risk when you decide to watch a new film or try a new restaurant or some dish you've not eaten before. The risk is that the book, the film, the restaurant and the food might not turn out to be as good as you hoped.

Taking a risk can open you up to new ideas, opportunities and experiences. You can discover good things about yourself, your abilities, other people and the world. And, as the writer T.S Eliot, said, Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far it is possible to go.

When you take a risk, you make things happen rather than wait for them to happen to you. And the fact that you are taking a risk makes it likely that you will do your damnedest to make sure things will work out!