Now Is the Time to Break Out: How Familiarity Risk Management Can Change Everything

This weekend was different. And honestly, it was better, mostly because we finally broke out of our familiar patterns.

We went to a housewarming party for our new neighbors, something that, not too long ago, we might have talked ourselves out of with the usual excuses. We also attended a new church for the second time since Easter, a place that still feels new but already a little more like home. At both places, we met so many people who were welcoming, kind, and open. And it left us with one undeniable realization: the time to break out of old habits is now.

It would have been easy to stay home, to stick with what was comfortable, to keep assuming the world outside was going to be cold or indifferent. It always is, until you step into it and find out otherwise.

This is the heart of Familiarity Risk Management (FRM): the idea that when life feels uncertain, we tend to manage that uncertainty by clinging to what feels familiar. Even when those patterns no longer serve us, even when they quietly shrink the size of our world.

The problem is that comfort isn’t always safety. Familiarity can disguise itself as security, when what it is really offering is a slow kind of isolation. The more we cling to what we know, the less we allow ourselves to grow.

Breaking out of our usual patterns by attending that party, walking into that church, saying hello first...it can all feel uneasy. But it wasn’t the risk we feared. It was the risk we needed.

It reminded us that new connections, new routines, and new experiences are how we build a better, richer life.

FRM teaches us that it is natural to seek out the familiar, especially after seasons of uncertainty. But it also challenges us to recognize when that instinct is holding us back instead of keeping us safe. It reminds us that the unknown, while uncomfortable, is often where the good things are waiting.

This weekend proved it. The risk of reaching out paid off. The reward was connection, warmth, and a glimpse of a life that feels fuller and not smaller. New neighbors, new opportunities, new friends...all positives that breaking out led to. And maybe most importantly, it made clear that waiting for “the right time” to change is a trap.

The right time is now.