Thinking negatively is the new Optimism

You are planning to start a side business hoping to materialize it into your full-time job in the next few years. You believe that this venture of yours will be wildly successful and you can almost visualize yourself riding high on success. Enter your realist friend who tells you that 80% of the businesses fall flat in the very first year.

What will you do? Envision the best outcome as visualization makes dreams come true or think of how your venture could potentially fail. How rude of me to even plant an idea of anxiety!

However here is where I would like to introduce the fine difference between awareness and anxiety. ‘premeditatio malorum’, or premeditation of evils is an ancient Stoic philosophy which encourages everyone taking a moment to think through everything that could go wrong with a particular plan. This may sound like a huge downer, but it’s calming.  It’s as simple as, if Plan A does not work, then have a back-up Plan B. US Army Special Forces use it before every mission – an entire analysis of “if-then”. They spend entire morning before every mission discussing every possible mistake or disaster that could happen – if the helicopter crash lands, if they are dropped off at the wrong spot, if they are ambushed etc. Instead of waiting until problem arises, your brain is ready to tackle the obstacle on an auto-pilot mode. It’s a calculated and well envisioned way to achieve your goals.

A wonderful technique to do this is called WOOP (based on 20 years of scientific research) – Wish, Outcome, Obstacle and Plan. So, start with a dream ("I want to lose 10 kgs") ; crystalize it in your mind and jot down the result you desire ("to look stellar in my wedding dress"); pen down the obstacles that could come your way ("but I crave for sugar when stressed") and then address it with solutions ("so if I feel anxious I will eat fruits during meals").

There are more benefits to using WOOP – it gives you the energy to be resilient, helps you know if your goal is unrealistic, helps you know a “grit vs quit” stage and lastly ends in less regret if you put your goal aside. It prepares us for hardship in general. 

So who would you be? An optimist or a negative realist who is ready for the worst.

This article is inspired from Eric Barker's research on "Do Quitters Never Win and Do Winners Never Quit".