Why a Plan B?

A note from peter@thewealthyattitude.com for Tuesday March 10 2009

Hello there good folks and welcome to Tuesday.

One of the very intersting things that is coming out of some of the lessons being learned with this new economic condition is that "everyone" should have a Plan B. Why you ask?

Simple really, as the only mammal on the planet that functions from choice and not instinct, the only way we can really survive is to have a numer of alternatives from which to choose. Unfortuately, most folks don't even have a solid Plan A.

Perhaps our friend Daniel can cast some significant light on the issue for you. You'll appreciate what he has to say.

Why a Plan B?

by Daniel Midson-Short

What do you do when things don’t go to plan??

In life you’ll often find that your best laid plans don’t work out exactly as you intend. After all, planning is basically our attempt to somehow control and direct the future. And even though we might have a clear vision of what we want, the future is always changing and evolving, sometimes not in the way we had hoped.

So what can you do when your best laid plans don’t work out? What happens when the company you committed yourself to for 5 years suddenly downsizes, or the relationship you thought was forever disintegrates?

Well, the only thing you can do is go to Plan B.

Yet often the hardest thing to do when you’ve just been through a tough setback is to try to plan out what to do next. You’re hurting emotionally, and you’re probably completely de-motivated. Still, if you’re serious about achieving what you want, then you must eventually start over. And here are some tips to help you along the way:

- Accept that your initial plans didn’t work out. For whatever the reason, the things you hoped would happen haven’t worked out. So, the best thing you can do is to accept it and move on. This is easier said than done, but the more you keep telling yourself you must accept it, the more chance you have of moving onto a bigger and better success.

- Realise that you still have YOU. Despite being setback financially,or time wise, you still have your most important asset: yourself. You still have within you all the same potential you’ve always had, and more importantly you have the knowledge that comes from having been through a tough experience.

- Look for the lesson, and find the gold. It seems a funny thing in life that we often repeatedly come up against a particular type of challenge until we learn from it. Generally the lesson we need to learn is something about ourselves, and it’s a tough one. So when you look back at your foiled plans, what is the lesson within? What can you adjust about yourself for next time? Remember that in order to find the gold, you have to dig deep into the mine. Somewhere inside the setback is the lesson you need to move to the next level.

-Give yourself recovery time. Each of us needs some time after a setback to get back to normal. We can’t perform at optimum if we have just been bruised emotionally or financially. In the game of poker there is a term known as going On Tilt. This means that after losing a big hand, it takes the player some time to re-adjust their mind to accept they have just lost an amount of money. Usually their adrenaline is higher, and their mind is not clear. Often this can cause them to start playing more aggressively or haphazardly to recover their loss. Top poker players know that after a tough beat,they need to lay low for a few hands and let themselves recover.

After a setback in your life, you’ll need to do the same. Don’t justjump into the next best thing you find to try to recover your loss.Take the time to think things through and take a wise next step.

-Go back to the fundamentals. In every business, and indeed in any type of endeavour, there are basic fundamentals that you need to know.Often, as we start to gain success in something we can forget the fundamentals that got us started and created our initial success. In times when you have a setback, it can be a good idea to revisit the fundamentals that gained you early success. Often refocussing your efforts on the simple important tasks can gain you more success than a bag full of elaborate tricks.

-Help someone else get back on track. You may be surprised by this final tip, as it’s a counterintuitive way to make yourself feel re-inspired. However, if you are feeling beaten by life, then try helping someone else to succeed in their life for a while, and I guarantee it will revive your spirit.

Life after all, isn’t a solo effort, it’s an ensemble. The old adageis true: if you help enough other people get what they want, you can’t help but get what you want. Remember that no matter how tough things seem right now, there is always someone else doing it tougher.

So be resilient and get back on track to your goals!