What to do when it all goes wrong?

 

Oops

What to you do when your decisions do not work out as you think they should?  Panic is the obvious first step.  What to do after you panic?  Panic a little more.  Kidding aside how do we recover from a bad decision.  What is a "bad decision".  I am writing about decisions where one has diligently searched for the best available information.  Then with the information, options are compared and the best available course of action has been taken.  I am not talking about a decision that has been based on a negative mindset.  As for a decision that may have been based on jealousy, spite, greed, or anger the only course of action would be atonement, restitution and forgiveness.

So how to react when a well meaning, and well thought out decision goes off the rails.  Once rational thinking is our main process, I would first asses the situation and determine 3 main aspects of the situation.  Those aspects are legitimacy, severity and timing.  Legitimacy helps assure us that our decision has lead to negative consequences.  It is important to make sure we are not just experiencing a "bump in the road".  Severity would help us determine the degree to which the negative consequences affect us. The timing would then give us an indication as to how quickly would would have to address the situation.

Giving some over simplified examples: 

You decide not to eat healthy and you begin to feel lousy.  You are now concerned.  So to address legitimacy you go to the doctor and he runs a series of tests.  The result is that you are not well.  It is a legitimate concern.  Most of the test are in the normal range but a few are border line.  According to the doctor you are not well but are not in any immediate danger of severe illness.  Changes to your diet are suggested and you are given the name of a dietitian.  You have time to address this issue without panic or immediate intervention. 

It is the great resignation and everyone is quitting there jobs for better ones.  After saving a little cash you decide to quit your job.  You are unable to find a new job and your funds have run out.  You are behind on the rent and about to lose your apartment.  Legitimacy, severity and timing are self evident in this situation.  Broke and evicted are concerns that need to be addressed immediately.

It all sounds logical.  But there seems to be very little logic in our responses.  We generally respond emotionally to our decisions going wrong.  A good one is that we begin to view the rest of the world as idiots.  I actually saw this in action working with a client.  The client had 90% of the market and was losing ground monthly.  All I ever heard from them was that there system was superior and customers were not smart enough to know it.  Eventually they lost most of their market share.

Another unfortunate response is despair.  No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try to do the right thing it always messes up.  Similar to that is the "I am an idiot and never get anything right" mindset.  This seems to be a personal favorite of mine.  I decide to retire the same month the stock market decided to nosedive.  Oh woe is me.

Another good one is denial.  This is not happening, it will be all right.  It will get better.  I guess this is what I am doing with the stock market these days.  Ha ha.

Looking back at the previous post The goal of it all I realize that learning to deal with decisions not going the way we expect them to is part of gaining the confidence in making those decisions.  In the post I just mentioned the goal of all this is to gain confidence in making decisions.  I am beginning to realize that a big part of that is dealing with things not going the way we want them.