Worst-case scenario

People tend to avoid thinking about negative things in life: you can easily find hundreds of books or podcasts about being positive, self-approving therapy where you try to gain confidence about being in control.

While I can relate to wanting to be in control, the truth is that you never are, and you shouldn’t try to lie to yourself about that. To be clear though, you can be in control of quite important aspects of your life, and you must keep them clearly aligned with your will.

However, you must acknowledge what you can’t control, and from there, you should plan for the Worst-case Scenario.

I don’t think this is particularly contrarian to say, but I often see people being optimistic without planning for the worst case. Of course, the worst-case scenario will not necessarily happen, but you won’t be lucky forever.

As soon as you plan for the worst case, you mentally prepare for it, and you will allow yourself to be okay with it. Failure is part of the journey - it can be quite hard on our mental health, so I believe thinking about failure early gives you an edge over people who don’t. A metaphor that I like is that, failure is like jumping off a cliff, and preparing for it is like carving a stairwell into that cliff.

You should try to “game” failure by anticipating where it will happen and assuring yourself that you did all you could to avoid it. If it still happens, go back to the drawing board, analyze why things went in the wrong direction, and plan what you could do to avoid it next time.