Many people fall apart on their road to success when they hit obstacles or bumps that they never planned for. They go their whole lives and careers simply hoping and praying that everything’s going to work out as they planned, which is absurd if you really think about it.
Inevitably, something’s going to go wrong, and it’ll be harder than you expected. This sounds pessimistic at first, but if you want to be successful, you need to be realistic. Unless you have the best luck in the world, something’s going to go wrong while you’re working towards success that you couldn’t have foreseen coming or done anything to prevent.
You may get sick and miss work, you may have to attend a funeral, and you may have to deal with some internal crises. The most successful people don’t let these unforeseen events drag them down, though.
They try to plan to the best of their ability for these kinds of things so that they won’t be ruined in any way by sudden disasters or losses. By expecting and preparing for the worst, you’ll be able to handle any situations that come your way.
One good, simple example is saving up for potential car troubles. Many people rely on their cars to get them to and from work, and often times might even use their car for their job.
So if something suddenly goes wrong and you’re out of a means of transportation, it can seriously affect your job. Instead of hoping or assuming your car won’t break down, gradually set aside a good sum of money that can be used in the event of an emergency for repairs as well as a car rental.
A more serious example would be something like a death in the family. While we all hope this never happens to us, there’s always that possibility that it will. And when it does happen to us, it can be crippling.
Prepare in advance for things like flights to family member’s funerals and discussions with your boss about paid leave while you’re grieving. It’ll seem like a real pain to have to think about all of these unfortunate events, but you’ll be a lot better off when they come around than you would have been just hoping they wouldn’t occur.
Preparations like these will prevent you from being steered off of your path to success by simple obstacles that you could’ve planned might hit. And it isn’t always about money, remember – sometimes it can be a disaster such as a team member quitting or a computer crashing and losing all of your files.
