How a contingency plan can be your best friend

We all set out with the best of intentions. We decide where we want to go. We decide how we want to get there. We set off on the journey. Yet, everyone is human. We all can make mistakes, despite the best laid plans. When you plan the path you want to take in life, you are, essentially, planning a journey into the unknown. As you have never been there before, you cannot be sure about the challenges that you are going to face. In some ways, it is like driving in a heavy rain storm i.e. you can see bits and pieces of what lies ahead but the entire path is not clear. That is when a contingency plan becomes essential. It's no wonder that unexpected things happen along the way. We simply cannot see all the angles, all the potential pitfalls, from the vantage point of where we start. That’s just the way things are. You can only identify as many potential pitfalls as you can and where possible, prepare yourself for the eventuality of something going wrong because the bigger your goal/project; the more likely it is that something will go wrong. You can't anticipate every eventuality, so stuff is bound to happen. It's a natural result of the future being uncertain, not of poor planning or personal inadequacy. The best way to deal with this uncertainty is to embrace the fact that things can, and will, go wrong and, prepare yourself as best as is possible. When you anticipate that something may go wrong, you can have a contingency plan in place which allows you to react swiftly and appropriately. Without a contingency plan, you end up wallowing in your own despair and disappointment as things don’t work out as you’d hoped. With small projects you can often get away without a contingency plan however, with larger projects a contingency plan is not a luxury; a contingency plan is a necessity. The bigger the project, the bigger and more detailed your plan will need to be.

Creating a simple contingency plan

For the very big projects you will need a very detailed contingency plan. However, most projects do not fall into that category. Therefore, you can draw up a good contingency plan in a short period of time. If there are a few people working on the project, it is best to work as a group when creating the contingency plan. You can use the following questions to help you:

1. What could go wrong?

Brainstorm as many things as possible that could go wrong. Let your imagination run wild. List each item and keep going until you feel that you have run out of potential issues; 5-10 minutes will usually be long enough.

2. What can you control?

Examine the list of potential problems and divide them into 2 lists – what you can control and, what you cannot control. There is no point dwelling on things which fall outside of your control so discard that list.

3. How likely is it to happen?

Devise your own scale e.g. 1-5 where 1 is highly unlikely to happen and 5 is highly likely to happen. Give each item on the list a rating.

4. How damaging would the impact be?

Use a scale, just like last time and give each item on the list a rating based on how damaging the impact would be if it were to occur.

5. What contingency can you plan for each item?

Work your way through each item on the list. Do so in the following order:

• Items which are both potentially damaging and more likely to happen
• Items which would be very damaging if they occurred
• Items which are more likely to happen

The first step when setting your contingency is to ask if you can actually eliminate the possibility of the issue arising in the first place as it is better to eliminate the risk than deal with the aftermath of the issue occurring.

If the risk cannot be avoided, you need to determine what you can do should the situation arise. Even if your solution cannot eliminate the issue there will usually be some action that you can take to lessen the impact.

6. How do you plan to deal with setbacks?

Even with the best made contingency plan, there is good chance that something which you haven’t thought of will go wrong. With any project, you should build time into your plan to deal with any setbacks and take any necessary action to get yourself back on track.

For more great tips for planning goals effectively, check out Ultimate Guide to Goal Setting.

When you have a contingency plan, you have an almost instantaneous way around any obstacle in your way. Taking the time to make a a contingency plan, as long as you are realistic, will greatly increase your chances of a success. There are 2 reasons for this: (1) you are being realistic about the chances of something going wrong and, (2) you are ready to spring into action and tackle issues as soon as they arise. When you expect a setback, you are better able to recover and move forward when the expected catastrophe occurs. The worst possible scenario is to be hit with a setback because you never considered the possibility that one could occur. In such a case, you're without a back-up plan just when you need one most. These are the types of setbacks that stop people cold in their tracks, some never to move forward again. This is not to say that when you expect to fail, you see all the possibilities ahead of time. It only means that when you anticipate failure as a part of your original plan, you are better able to deal with it when it does happen. This is where a contingency plan quickly becomes your best friend.