Getting Comfortable With Your Worst Case Scenario

Let’s talk about fear. Everyone is afraid of something - most of us are afraid of multiple things at once. Painting with a wide brush, I would say that most people are afraid of a few very common things. Fear of romantic rejection is a big one, as is fear of losing a job, the death of a loved one, and looking stupid in front of other people.

Fear has a way of paralyzing us into inaction. It sets up camp in our brains until we stop acting like ourselves. Let’s explore a low-stakes example. Have you ever been interested in someone, but were so afraid that they would reject you that you talked yourself out of ever asking them out at all? Or choked at the crucial moment and stuttered or dropped your drink? I have heard this described as ‘nerves getting the best of us’, but I think that the heart of the matter is deeper than that. Nervous behavior is often caused by fear of a bad outcome. You choked when you went to ask someone out because you were afraid that they would say no. Or worse, laugh at you. This same phenomenon happens in sports all the time. When an athlete has to sink one putt, make one final free throw, or complete one more pass to secure the title with everything on the line - they choke. 

I think that people can sense fear. We are not always conscious of it, but more often than not, humans are very aware of one another even when no one is being outwardly expressive. I would posit that this ambiguous sense has been cultivated over millions of years of evolution. We can sense fear in one another the way a shark can sense blood from half a mile away. 

So what do you do when your fear of a bad outcome is paralyzing you or turning you into someone else? Simple, you lean into that fear. For years now, I have been engaging in the mental exercise of envisioning my worst-case scenarios in gritty, horrifying detail. Before I start a business, I sit down and think about everything that could go wrong. I imagine how it would feel, how it would affect myself and others, and what I would do about it. What would happen if I had to lay off half of my staff? Or declare bankruptcy? Or sell my house? It is an uncomfortable exercise for sure, but more often than not I realize that should the worst come to pass, I would deal with it and continue to move forward. Dealing with it may not be easy (the sudden death of a loved one springs to mind here as something that would be particularly difficult to move on from), but the majority of the time a worst-case scenario is far worse in our heads than it is in reality. Turns out, humans are resilient creatures. 

Something pretty incredible happens when I take myself down the path of envisioning my worst-case scenario and mentally working through it to the extent I actually am okay with it.  It doesn’t mean it won’t hurt but when you get okay with your worst case scenario,...it ceases to be so frightening. When I confront the thing I fear the most and conclude that is not actually world-ending, I can accept it. I then start thinking more clearly and making better decisions. In a fantastic irony, when I start to accept that things may not go my way, that scent of fear hanging around me evaporates and I believe that the probability of the desired outcome actually increases… dramatically.  

It is that simple and that difficult, but if you can get comfortable with your worst-case scenario, it is that much less likely to occur. Try it sometime.