Cathy's blog

What to do when things go wrong?

Because things will go wrong... eventually. Murphy, you know?

You can’t fix the world (there’s not nearly enough time in your life to take on such an enormous project!) 😊

But you can prepare yourself better for when things could eventually go wrong (you might even be able decrease the risk of things actually going wrong! 😉)

How? The solution is called scenario-thinking.

A couple of weeks ago, I spoke to a young woman, Lynn, who was getting increasingly frustrated about her career choices. Whenever she was interviewing with companies, she would be super optimistic. She’d put on her rose-colored glasses and start dreaming about how great (amazing! ideal!) every opportunity was that happened to come her way.

With determination she’d push her way through the process. Because everything that came her way was interesting, challenging, and just what she was looking for... Perfection!

The problem was, once she actually started a job, she had a habit of storing the rose-colored glasses in the basement and replacing them with a critical version 🧐

And within days, she’d discover that the new boss wasn’t very nice IRL. The clients turned out to be way too demanding. The workload too high.

And, you guessed it... she ended up being disappointed all over again.

If only she would have done things backwards!

In scenario thinking, we use all of our critical thinking before we make a choice.

• What if I do this? What am I going to have to learn?
• What will I like? What could frustrate me?
• What information is still missing? What is my intuition telling me?

If Lynn had been honest with herself, she probably would have spotted that the new boss was already a bit demanding during her interview. That he had mentioned the overtime that would be expected and had hinted at the issues that existed with some clients.

• “What if I don’t do this?” “What does that mean for me?”

Lynn could have asked more questions in the interview to figure out just how demanding her boss would be, and whether she would be able to achieve more with the clients than the girl before her. Or not.

• “What other options do I have?”

Armed with more knowledge, instead of jumping at the first offer she received, Lynn might have decided to stay where she was for a bit longer... and go to a couple more interviews.

And, in the end, her choices might have been the same! 😊

But if she would have made them with more information, intention, and a sense of reality, she would have felt different making them. And she would have been far better prepared to deal with whatever came her way.

How often do we say, afterwards: “I knew this was going to be a lousy meeting” or “I had this nagging feeling, I just didn’t listen to it!”

Take the time to listen to yourself. Ask plenty of questions. Set yourself up for success 💪

You got this!