The Worst Thing To Do When Things Go Wrong

Written by a human, for humans, always.

In life, things are going to go wrong.

But this is something that I have noticed...

For most people...

It becomes vastly worse than it needs to.

The reason is that they do the worst thing they can do when things go wrong...

Panic.

Now, I know that may seem stupidly simple...

But there is a lot more at play psychophysiologically than most people realize which we'll look at.

I also understand that for most it is the natural inclination to freak out...

And either go into a frenzied meltdown...

Or go into immediate solution mode...

Which neither direction is helpful.

Why?

Psychophysiology.

When things go wrong...

And we begin to panic...

Our entire brain becomes instantly compromised.

All of our thoughts in those moments are unhelpful.

If we move into a frenzied meltdown...

Every thought begins to catastrophize itself into worse and worse versions...

Of which the vast majority will never occur, meaning we are wasting a lot of time and energy on things that will never come to pass.

If we move into immediate solution mode...

Our higher cognitive capacities in the brain are literally blocked due to the panic...

Meaning whatever solutions we come up with will fail to account for various important factors...

Will often lead to the "fastest" solutions, but those which are ineffective...

And because we are not thinking clearly...

We will miss crucial details...

Meaning it will be more likely for more things to go wrong...

Creating a chain effect where we begin to lose sight of which "solutions" caused which problems...

Turning everything into a larger catastrophic mess that is more difficult to sort out.

What this means...

Is that we need a different type of solution when things go wrong.

What is the best thing that we can do when things begin to go wrong?

Stop.

Literally, just stop.

Stop focusing on thoughts about how things could go worse.

Wait to try to come up with solutions.

Just stop.

Take a second.

Breathe.

What you need to do before you begin to move forward...

Is to work the nervous system back down.

There are a variety of ways to accomplish this depending on the context and what you have available.

You can start by slowing your breathing down...

Longer out than in...

Deep in the diaphragm (Lower belly and lower rib areas)...

Only through the nose.

You can use mental phrases...

Everything will work out...

All problems can be fixed...

This is not the end of the world...

I'm going to be alright.

Then you can move into more purposeful types of modalities.

Utilization of a Rescue Remedy...

Tapping...

Heart-Focused Breathing...

Meditation...

Walking away from the situation to get your head straight...

Going on a slow jog ("not" a slow run)...

Getting an outside perspective (Supervisor, Therapist, Coach, Doctor, etc., depending on context)...

Eating a snack.

That is a small list of things...

Context is going to matter, and what specifically is going on when things go wrong...

(i.e. if there is a medical emergency, going for a slow jog is probably not what you need to be doing; you need to get medical emergency personnel on scene in that case.)

But there are many things that "can" be done...

So that you do not begin to immediately go into panic mode...

Where nothing is going to be beneficial to you.

Life happens.

It is absolutely normal for things to go wrong.

Things "will" go wrong.

It does not matter how good you are...

Eventually, something is going to happen.

Here is the thing, though...

Most people wait to do something about it "when" things go wrong...

And this is why their natural tendency is to panic.

Their psychophysiology is already compromised...

And when something goes wrong...

It either breaks their psychophysiology that was on a knife's edge to begin with...

Or it makes their problematic psychophysiology dramatically worse than it already was...

And worse..

Because this is how they have operated for most or all of their life...

They are also battling years and decades of habits and memory capsules (part of how the nervous system works).

This makes it vastly more difficult to not panic in the moment.

What this means...

Is that if you "wait" for things to go wrong...

It will most likely be too late...

And you're going to panic anyway.

That is a large part of the reason why people can read an article like this...

"Know" what they are "supposed" to do in a moment...

And fail to actually do it.

Their psychophysiology is completely out of sync, and despite their cognitive recognition of what they are supposed to do...

They are unable to use their cognitive capacities in the moment.

So...

You have to actually fix your psychophysiology "before" things go wrong...

So that when they go wrong, you are already prepared...

And you can actually do the things that you know you are supposed to do.

This also means that you either need to know what is wrong with your psychophysiology...

Which most people do not truly know...

Or you need somebody who has a strong enough grasp of psychophysiology to be able to help you determine what you need...

And be prepared to do the work to fix your psychophysiology to live a better life.

For most people...

This is not a simple fix.

If you take just burnout alone...

Which over 80% of the workforce now faces...

It takes a minimum of 3 weeks of proper recovery, assuming you are only in "light" burnout...

And can take over a year of recovery for deeper burnout.

That does not include the time and effort required to accomplish things like...

Remove oxidative stress...

Eliminate trauma capsules...

Understand and shape our identities, especially what I call our Reactive Shadow Identities...

Restore ceruloplasmin and Mg-ATP stores...

Change our habits...

And more.

Our psychophysiology underpins everything we do...

And it becomes either the booster or the limiter of our potential.

If you want to become the best version of yourself...

Capable of not panicking when things go wrong...

And handling problems with ease...

You need to start with your psychophysiology.

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