Stay Confident of Success With a Failure Expectation Plan
Bad luck happens to the best of us, but it can still crush egos completely. And when your ego is suppressed, it’s easy to give up. Don’t let setbacks undermine your goals. Prepare for this with a failure expectation plan.
Author Ramit Sethi explains how anticipating rejection and even planning it can help maintain self-confidence. For example, when he applied to Stanford, he expected to receive a rejection letter, so he came up with a contingency plan:
Since I already assumed that I would be refused, I already planned what I would do to get inside, despite their refusal. I was going to send them the latest updates on my coursework, some recent press clippings I made, and some news about the business / job I did in high school. In short, getting “no” was only the first step.
If Sethi was rejected, it would not slow down his motivation, because he was mentally prepared for this rejection. Not only that, he had a plan to keep trying.
We all know the cliché “Hope for the best and prepare for the worst.” But many of us don’t use this advice. We usually don’t make a realistic plan for the worst. We try once, but fail, and still tell ourselves that we never really wanted to. However, Sethi’s advice goes beyond this cliché. He reminds us that success doesn’t depend on a single attempt:
I have learned a very valuable lesson: we gain confidence in our abilities not as a result of the ONLY successful attempt, but as a result of planning ahead and executing this plan until we reach our goal.
In short, brace yourself for the worst by coming up with a contingency plan. Make sure the plan still supports your ultimate goal. This will not only save you the confidence hit from failure, but it will also take the next step towards success.
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