The research available on the use of positive risk‐taking in clinical practice is surprisingly limited. The purpose of this article is to highlight the limitations and make recommendations about how risk‐taking could shape future practice in mental health services. A search of databases including CINAHL and PsycINFO for papers that included the keywords recovery, risk management, positive risk‐taking and risk management found that mental health practitioners were keen to promote positive risk‐taking with patients to enable their recovery. Barriers to this included a culture of blame should a negative outcome arise, and the need for more support and guidance from management. As positive risk‐taking has been shown to be an important part of successful recovery, there is a need for more research to support its application in clinical practice.