A good risk has a plan B. A great one has a plan B you’d be okay living with.
RESILIENCE
WHAT THIS MEANS
Most people stop at having a fallback and never check whether they could stand it. A backup you would hate living in is not protection, just a less bad disaster, and it makes you timid in the main attempt because you are secretly terrified of landing there. The point of a second option is to make the first one survivable.
Write down what happens if this does not work, then ask whether you could live that life for a year. If the answer is no, the job is to improve the fallback rather than abandon the plan. A backup you are fine with is what lets you commit properly.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
Could you live happily with the backup to your current plan?
MORE IN COURAGE & RISK
- The first time you knock on a patient’s door with a volunteer badge on, your knuckles hesitate. Knock anyway.
- Being the first one to say “sorry” in a family fight changes the temperature of the whole house.
- Most of the brave things you’ll do this year will take under a minute. The fear just makes them feel longer.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.