You know that old saying, “Hope for the best, but plan for the worst?” I completely disagree. I say, “Hope for the best and plan for it, too.”
That probably sounds like unrealistic dreamland to a lot of people, but consider it a second. What if, instead of spending all your time wondering how terrible life will be if everything goes wrong, you visualize how great it will be if it all goes right?
If we’re going to live a little dangerously, I think we need to stop wasting our time planning for every worst case scenario. In almost any risk you take, the likelihood of actually winding up in the worst case scenario is incredibly low. Spending all of your time and energy preparing for it is wasted.
The worst case scenario in any situation is death. That’s the very end of the line. Better to recognize that and take a few precautionary steps to avoid it rather than spend a lot of energy planning out every other less than desirable outcome. If you don’t die, you can recover from it. Simple as that. And that’s something you can figure out when you get to it.
You see, the real danger in planning for the worst is twofold:
1) It stops you from even trying.
It’s scary to think about everything that could go wrong on your mission, but your lizard brain is more than happy to let you do it anyway.
It knows that if it can get you to dwell on the worst case scenario long enough, you won’t even considering the idea of getting started. Of course, that makes your lizard brain very happy because it’s exhausting for it to spend so much time getting you through a dangerous situation. It would much rather you just didn’t try. If it has it’s way, you won’t.
2) It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.
Have you ever noticed that you typically get what you plan for? Maybe not exactly, but pretty close? The plans we make and expectations we set tend to be self fulfilling prophecies.
If you spend all your time figuring out how to avoid life’s pitfalls, that’s probably what you’ll end up spending most of your time doing – avoiding pitfalls. You completely kneecap any possibility of truly succeeding by spending all your time figuring out how “not to fail.”
What if, instead of focusing your energy on figuring out how not to fail, you made a strategy for incredible success? Instead of asking yourself, “What if everything goes wrong?,” you ask yourself, “What if everything goes right?” That’s a lot more likely to get you excited about your ideas and get you not only acting on them, but acting on them in a way that will breed success rather than failure.
- What if you quit your job and find your real life purpose?
- What if you take that big trip and meet all the people you wish you’d met years ago?
- What if you start that business and actually make money faster than you expected?
- What if you take on that big challenge and actually succeed?
I know this is a hard sell for a lot of people, but I’ve seen it over and over again in my own life. I quit the construction industry and realized that writing is what brings me alive. I started Advanced Riskology and it’s grown hundreds of times faster than I ever expected. I ran a marathon faster than I thought I could and climbed a mountain on the first try.
Sure, all sorts of things could have gone wrong and I definitely planned for a few of them, but the real reason I’ve been as “lucky“ as I have been is because I actually got started and followed through. And the reason I did that? Because I allowed myself to wonder, “What if everything goes right?”
What if everything you’re planning goes right? What would life look like then? Let me know in the comments.
~~~~~
Side note: Don’t forget that my very first, completely free digital guide, Take This Job & Shove It, launches tomorrow morning at 7 AM Eastern Time.
If you’ve ever had big plans but felt trapped by your job and your paycheck, then this guide is for you because it explains exactly how to make a big career transition without freaking out about money. This is something I have first hand knowledge in, so I really hope it helps a lot of people.
Oh, and it also comes with $100 in free offers to help you get started on your own transition. Yep, I’m going to pay you to read my free guide. What a concept, huh? Look forward to seeing you tomorrow.
Image by: Thai Jasmine
This article was a great way to start off the week! Way to get us riskologists motivated for another groundbreaking week captain.
Glad you’re getting the week off on the right foot, Stefanie. Just think how great it could be…
If everything goes right then I can be a stay-at-home mom! And if everything goes better than expected I want a baby blue range rover sport with tan interior and a white porche 911 with racing stripes!
Tyler,
It’s funny you bring this up because I’ve said this too. One of the stupidest questions that people tend to ask themselves is “What’s the worst that could happen?”. It seems simple and not really harmful. One thing I learned from Tony Robbins power questions concept is that the brain answers questions literally even if there’s no basis in reality for what you ask it. So, from that point on I decided that anytime I was going to take a chance I’d ask myself “What’s the best that could happen?”
Interesting, Srinivas. I hadn’t heard that before, but it makes perfect sense. The brain will work incredibly hard to make a “reasonable” guess when it doesn’t know an answer, but reasonable does not equal logical and the two can be very, very different.
Thanks for this inspiration Tyler! I was further discussing with friends about starting my own design business. A lot of people tend to give me “cautious” advice about how hard it is and blah blah blah. But I HATE my job. And I’ve been wanting to do this for a while. It’s easy to be a debbie downer to someone else or yourself when you mention going out on a limb and starting your own business. Maybe things will work out for the best. Maybe my hard work will get me success and everything will go well. I won’t know until I try I guess. Thanks for this article, made me have some hope and inspiration
Glad I could help a little, Nicole.
“Cautious” advice is hard to deal with. Usually, the people giving it to you are only doing so because they really care about you, but the advice is almost always useless when you know it’s time to make a big change.
Great post, Tyler! I couldn’t agree more about the danger of setting yourself up for failure by even thinking it’s possible. As the saying goes: “If you think you can’t, you’re right.”
A good article, Tyler. And I believe you’re right: planning and expecting (for) success, as opposed to getting all hyperaware of the pitfalls, is essential. It’s a balance, yes?
I completely aggree, I’d much rather plan for the best than waste time thinking about all the things that could go wrong – and I’ll be forwarding this article with a friend who is notorious for always worrying about all the things that can go wrong in any given situation.
Thanks for the great post!
P.S. I will definately be checking out your new guide that’s coming out tomorrow – can’t wait!
i would have to agree a bit with shawn, in saying that it is a balance. In climbing mountians especially. You have to be well aware of all possible scenarios that could happen and learn to mitigate them efficiently (certainly not overlook them). am i on the right track here?
It also seems that being complacent in this avenue spells absolute disaster and as mentioned by tyler – death
Right, Mike. If you’re climbing a mountain, there are actual deadly consequences for not preparing properly.
You need to go into any risk logically. If you could actually die, then hell yes, you need to prepare for that.
On the other hand, it’s all too common to take a circumstance that is merely “scary” and turn it into something much worse than it would ever likely turn out.
Right on, Tyler.
Oftentimes, we plan on the worst because we hear other people’s horror stories about their experience with whatever it is that you’re doing. We then identify with their mistakes, and then go through this awful spiral where we think we’ll do things just like them, think just like them, and have the same experience as them, resulting in a serious focus on the worst case scenario.
But.. We aren’t other people. We’re ourselves, and may be better (or worse) at things than other people. That’s why you ran a marathon faster than you thought you could.
On the flip-side, focusing on the outcome if everything goes right – provided that it going ‘right’ is within your control – then it gives you even more of an incentive to go all-in, hold nothing back, and try your hardest to make the best possible outcome a reality.
It is a good article, and I also agree with a few that say there should be balance. If one only thinks and plans for the best possibilities and outcomes, one is caught off guard by unexpected negatives events. We shouldn’t plan for the worst, but keep in mind possible negatives.
Can I just say I’m excited for tomorrow because of the title of the guide?
You could not have said it better Tyler… great piece! There is a very special someone who subconsiously plan for the worse without even realizing it. The funny thing is he is such a postitive person but when he plans it’s never an outcome due to the fair of a worse case scenario. Is he happy? Of course he is not!
Love this, as an optimist I say “Ditto!” My husband, a philosopher (I always call him the ultimate skeptic), tries to keep it down-to-earth but I love the idea of seeing all the positive things life can be. I like calling it the “sparkle of the world” but I will now start asking that question, too!
Hey Tyler,
Nice article, I was talking with a friend yesterday about a new job which I would like to do and she was telling about all the things that could go wrong and I was thinking that I should be more optimistic and go for it. And today morning I happened to see this article, it gives me a good feeling
keep up the good work !
Jeffy
I hesitated to read this article cause I just didn’t want to hear “everything will work out right”. Why? Not really sure yet, but realizing I have a lot of negativity ingrained in my head, I guess. I relate to Srinivas’ comment and how our brain is working in ways we aren’t always aware of. I hate to pull the I’m older card, but I also just feel like having gone through a lot of bad experiences in life (like many have), I feel so skeptical of people and situations. I remember being a fresh young person with no fear and boundless positivity…
Isn’t it great to have thoughts that can take you where you really wanted to go?
Hi Tyler
While I love this advice, the only issue I have is that if I raise my expectations then the pain of not succeeding is worse than if I bring my expectations to a more ‘realistic’ level.
For example, having networked the crap out of a careers fair, I was approached to apply for a really great job. I really wanted it, and believed I was the right person for it, but I didn’t make myself believe that I would get it just in case I didn’t get it. In the end, I came second to a girl with more experience in specific sectors, and there wasn’t much more I could do in that case. I feel better having not allowed myself to believe it was mine, and I know that I would have been really discouraged if I had have built up my expectations only to be disappointed with not getting the job. I think that motivation while job-hunting is so important, and too many disappointments can really knock me sideways.
Perhaps when the power is all in your hands (i.e. not in the hands of a potential employer), then planning for everything to go right makes more sense. What do you think?
Cat
Hmm . . . honestly, I’m kinda torn right now. I like the idea of “having it all” as well as the idea of “going minimalist” and I’m having a hard time deciding which is the right path for me. Possibly a mixture of both? Hmm . . .
Although I do want to travel and be able to take my job with me, I don’t want to make travel my entire life. I want to have a “home-base” for the majority of the year and travel during the kids’ breaks from school.
I’m sure there’s a way to create a balance between the two that is exactly what I want. Just have to dissect it and figure it out is all.
Annie, check out my interview on Rowdy Kittens: http://rowdykittens.com/2010/08/take-this-job-shove-it/
Tammy asks me if I consider myself a minimalist and I say that I’m more of a “maximalist” with “minimalist tendencies.”