1 Ancient and Timeless Way To Prepare for Tough Times
Tough times never last but tough people do. — Robert Schuller
There’ll always be tough times. You want to pursue that big goal, but it comes with challenges, and those challenges trigger emotions — fear, stress, anxiety — whatever you want to call it, it’s that thing that makes you surrender.
In the US Army, there’s a term for it — VUCA — volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. The trick is to learn to be prepared for it to navigate it well.
One method the Stoics consistently used to prepare for those hard times is what they called premeditatio malorum — premeditation of evils and troubles that may lie ahead.
They used it to fortify their mind and transform it into an impenetrable inner fortress — their “Inner Citadel”.
The Army does something called an AAR (after-action review) where they assess what went wrong in a mission and what they can do to fix things so they don’t happen again.
It’s the same thing doctors do when they conduct a post-mortem, an examination of a body to determine the cause of death.
In premeditatio malorum, it’s a before-action review, a pre-mortem. It’s thinking about all the ways something can go wrong in that thing you’re pursuing and identifying ways to prepare for it.
Why wait for things to go bad when we can be proactive about it and be better prepared to overcome those obstacles?
Prepared for failure but ready for success.
Let’s get into how to apply this.
Step 1. Identify what you want to accomplish.
What’s your goal?
Step 2. Make a list of worst-case scenarios that could conceivably happen.
List only the worst possible things that could go wrong, those things that have the power to stop you dead on your tracks, to trigger those negative emotions. This is what we’re preparing for.
You must also visualize the challenges that are likely to arise and determine how you will attack those problems when they do. — David Goggins
Step 3. For each worst-case scenario, come up with at least one way to realistically address and tackle it.
This is about having backstops in place for when s**t hits the fan.
You can’t prepare for everything, but it’s a large step forward.
Step 4. Have a small list of strong enough reasons for why you’re doing what you’re doing.
We tend to forget this step and just plunge right into something out of passion.
But, when you hit that wall of pain and self-doubt, you’ll need to take out that list and remind yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing and channel those reasons to help you get through to the other side.
Step 5. Rehearse it.
This involves not only thinking about it mentally or writing it down in our journals.
It involves action — putting yourself in a similar situation and/or where similar emotions can be triggered. You want to actually expose yourself to the emotions and pain you may feel.
You want to feel the same emotions during the expected tough times.
One way to do this is to find activities that are likely to trigger those emotions. With enough practice, inoculation takes place.
- Pretending you’re poor: eating canned foods and sleeping on the floor for a couple of days
- Ice baths and cold exposure
- Engaging in a difficult conversation
- Presenting publicly to an audience
- Endurance sports
- Combat sports (judo, jiu jitsu, Muay Thai, etc.)
Anything that triggers similar thoughts, emotions, and pain you may feel.
Step 6. Understand that you can get better with the right amount of effort.
Don’t waste time, start fortifying your Inner Citadel, and remember, on the other side of fear is freedom and a whole other life waiting for you.
Try these steps and let me know what you think. Hope it helps you embrace and overcome some of your emotions and complete that goal you’ve been tabling.
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