Throw Your Hat Over The Wall

When it comes to the crunch, do you swerve the big decision?

Risking it might not be in your nature but if you never do something that takes you out of your comfort zone then you tend to shy away from most risks, big and small.

There’s a part of us that will always try and convince us not to take a leap of faith and that’s down to fear (fear of change, fear of the unknown, fear of failure).

But sometimes you’ve just to throw your hat over the wall.

“Throw your hat over the wall” is an expression that suggests that once you’ve put your hat somewhere you are committing to getting it back, especially if it’s a favourite hat!

This expression is told by John Fitzgerald Kennedy in his speech at the Dedication of the Aerospace Medical Health Center, San Antonio, Texas, November 21, 1963.

Frank O’Connor, the Irish writer, tells in one of his books how, as a boy, he and his friends would make their way across the countryside, and when they came to an orchard wall that seemed too high and too doubtful to try and too difficult to permit their voyage to continue, they took off their hats and tossed them over the wall–and then they had no choice but to follow them.

So, if you have something in the way of your goal, throwing a hat over the wall equates to acting swiftly to commit yourself. You don’t want to lose that hat!

Throwing your hat over the wall could be saying “before this decade is out, we will send a man to the moon and return him safely.”

That’s how JFK threw his hat over the wall.

When you throw that hat over the wall then you are committed to getting over that obstacle.

This is about making a decision and taking some action.

Equestrians have a similar saying and that is “Throw your heart over the fence before you approach it.”

Don’t let fear hold you back, trust yourself and trust your horse!

Right, now for those New Year resolutions.