What's the worst that could happen?
Probably a lot of us grew up hearing this phrase:
What’s the worst that could happen?
Usually it’s said rather casually or even in an off-hand way, indicating that the possible negative outcomes of an action are probably not bad enough not to do the thing.
But there’s a deeper dive here that is actually extremely useful in those times where we hold ourselves back from taking action – to truly consider what our worst fear is.
Sometimes our worst fear starts of pretty innocuously. Like, if I speak up in that meeting with a dissenting opinion, I might risk my job.
OK, unlikely, but hey, we’ve heard stories and sure, that can happen.
But then we take it to the next level, and beyond. What if I get fired, and then I can’t find another job? And then I can’t pay my rent? And then I’ll get evicted and have to live in my car, if I even have one??!
The spiral downhill into irrationality is fast and slippery.
But there is something useful in that question, and in the exercise of leaning into the scary possibilities instead of pushing them away out of abject fear. If, for instance, you really are holding yourself back from speaking up in that meeting because you worry it will lead to you living in your car, consider: What would you actually do if you got fired for speaking up?
Well, maybe you would cry and feel a lot of fear. But then, you would probably break out your resume and update it, along with your LinkedIn profile. You might call some friends to see if their companies are hiring. You might start scouring job boards, going to job fairs, knocking on doors of businesses in your neighborhood to see if they need help. And probably another dozen or so things.
When we’re in that fear state (thinking about speaking up and then the way-down-the-road consequences of that going badly), we don’t actually stop to consider how we would deal with a hard situation. But if we do, we just might see that we would be able to come up with a plan. We would be able to figure out what to do next and we might not need to spiral down that slippery slope of our imagination.
What are you holding back from doing out of fear of a (very unlikely) eventuality that you could actually figure out if you faced it instead of just feared it?
