What’s the Worst that can Happen?
We are often told to manifest success by visualising it but, frankly, visualising success is easy. For most people, it involves fat bank accounts, corner offices, glamorous holidays or, if they’re not overly materialistic, fun times with the family or a cozy home in the hills or by the sea. The real superpower, in my opinion, is visualising a calamitous situation and figuring out a way to overcome it, with aplomb.
Asking yourself, “What is the worst thing that can happen?” or catastrophising, may sound like a recipe for a panic attack but it’s actually a classic technique in stoicism that helps reduce fear and prepares you for adversity.
Think of it as an emotional fire drill. If you can figure out how to exit a burning building in advance (even if it’s only in your mind), you won’t spend precious time trying to find the way out if you smell smoke in real life. In fact, if you believe that you can cope with any situation (no matter how dire) even before it’s happened, you actually develop the confidence to do so.
Don’t know what I mean? Let’s take the example of John and Jayanti.
Imagine John is tired of being taken for granted in his job and wants his boss to acknowledge his contribution. So, he prepares a speech and sets up a meeting with his boss for the following day. In this scenario, his positive, best-case mindset says, “I am an asset to the company. He will realise that I do a lot and will give me a pay hike.” The worst-case mindset says, “The boss may laugh at me and not give me a hike. But he’s unlikely to sack me or exile me to a desert island.” As soon as John accepts that he has nothing to lose (and everything to gain), his nervousness vanishes. He goes into the meeting not just prepared but bulletproof, because he has nothing left to fear.
Now consider the story of Jayanti, who was scheduled to fly to Dubai but is trapped at Delhi airport. Cognizant of the current political situation, she was prepared for her flight to be delayed, if not cancelled, and had already told herself, “Hopefully, my flight will take off. Worst case, I’ll be stuck at the airport eating McDonald’s burgers.” So, when the flight actually gets indefinitely delayed, she just shrugs and makes her way to McDonald’s. She can’t be defeated by the situation because she was already prepared for the worst.
There are, of course, some cons to consider while drawing up a worst-case scenario. You can’t let yourself be constricted by analysis paralysis. If you spend all day imagining the sky falling, you’ll never leave the house. Also, if you treat a worst-case scenario as a certainty rather than a possibility, you’ll be miserable even before the event starts.
Catastrophising helps, largely because of three factors:
· Anxiety Reduction: It shines a light on the monster under the bed, and shows us that it’s a lot less scary than we imagine it to be
· Resourcefulness: It forces us to pack a mental suitcase of solutions, just in case
· Perspective: It reminds us that we’ve survived a lot of bad things in the past, and will do so in the future too.
Basically, the goal of the exercise isn’t to become a pessimist who expects the world to end, but to become a person who knows they can handle whatever the world throws at them. And when you realise that you’re strong enough to deal with even the most unpleasant of situations, life becomes truly pleasant.
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