017: Plan for the Worst, Hope for the Best

Howdy folks,

How do you handle unexpected stressful situations?

Are you the type of person who is as calm as a cucumber and can just deal with anything life throws at you?

Or are you the person who pushes the panic button? It gets stressful, you might lose some sleep, and it takes over your thoughts. It’s like this stressful situation has hijacked your life.

If you are the 1st type - my question is are you even human?

I feel like most of us normies, we get stressed out when something unexpected gets thrown at us.

But I do think it is possible to have a bit more handle on the situation and not let it feel like the whole house of cards is tumbling down.

One way to help yourself in these situations is to plan for the worst and to hope for the best.

Alright but what does that look like?

Well, luckily I went through a stressful situation, just so I could give you a real-world example.

Before I get hit with the sarcasm - ‘Oh yea, did the coconuts run out at the shop?’

No that would be awful let's get serious.

It’s easy to look at other people’s lives and think.

Oh, their stress isn’t real stress.

We can just look at celebrities and think.

Oh yea Johnny Depp it must be reallll stressful living in them mansions in Beverly Hills. (excuse the dated + possibly misused pop culture references)

But it isn’t that simple, is it?

We all feel the same emotions and so if someone goes through a divorce it isn’t easy no matter who you are or what you have around you.

Okay, so we’re all on the same page. As a common humanity, we agree that all stress should be looked at through a similar lens.

So back to my coconut dilemma.

No that’s not what happened.

But what did happen? I’ll give the super short version.

Received a text from an unknown number saying that it was our new landlord in Cyprus and there were problems.

Long story short.

It was legit and basically, he wanted to evict us so that he could double the rent.

That’s the scenario

This was our home that we’ve lived in for 4 years and we had 2 weeks to move out.

Another fun fact is that I was in SE Asia when I saw this.

I could give more details but it would feel like I’m just playing a little sad violin for myself.

And this is not what this post is about.

It’s about giving you a real-life example of how to deal with unexpected situations.

So what helps calm the nerves while also dealing with the situation?

Here are the steps I took maybe you might find it useful too.

4 Steps to Handling Unexpected Situations

1. Step out - take time to deregulate

What do you do when you need to relax or calm yourself?

That was my go-to.

I went and did my normal morning routine.

Putting my body through that familiar pattern helped release the tension and stress even if it was 10% it was worth it.

For me, this was gym, sauna ice bath, meditation, and writing.

That helped clear the head a bit and get me into my body a bit more.

2. Build a clear picture.

It’s easy for the thoughts and emotions to run wild in these situations.

It’s speculation at its finest.

This is something that my brain absolutely lovesss.

Coming up with all the what-if scenarios.

So it helped me to do my best to get a picture of what is reality.

Focus on facts more and not just what I feel as right now the feelings and emotions are heightened.

Got the facts?

Okay now comes the best part

3. List your options - Plan for the Worst, Hope for the Best

This is where the plan for the worst but hope for the best comes into play

It doesn’t matter in which order you start with

But now you can list the scenarios that might happen.

Even if it is your speculation fears

Write it down.

Then, more importantly, write how you would deal with that situation if it happened.

But make sure to write it out.

Next, what is the dream outcome?

And you can go down the list from the best to the worst scenario.

It’s important to focus on the best scenarios as much as you want to list out the bad ones too.

So now you have your list of options

From A to Z or 1 - 10

It doesn’t matter

What you have here is super powerful and helpful

You now have all the scenarios and options you can take in each event

Even more than that.

You have acknowledged all your inner fears that could happen. You didn’t push them away.

Even more than that you have options that you would now be happy with if they happened.

Then finally, and I think this might be the most important one.

This is so important and valuable

And I want to really underline why this is key to everything.

Because let’s be honest

Life will throw us banana peels

No matter who we are, what stage of life we’re in.

Something will happen.

That was unexpected and it wasn’t particularly good.

But being able to not get lost in the hopelessness of it all.

If you can find a way that you feel like you have inner control of it.

That will help you immensely

Don’t just take my word for it

I know some of you still might be like - yea whatever your situation isn’t a big deal.

Let’s take a lesson from the book

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Now if there was ever a man or whole group of people that got landed in the most awful stressful situation.

This would probably be It.

There’s probably not much worse than being put in a Nazi concentration camp.

But again this is not to judge you or your stressful situation.

There’s nothing worse than undermining someone’s subjective experience

“Well, look at what this guy went through in WW2”

“So man up - what you’re dealing with isn’t that bad”

This is not what I am doing - I want to do the opposite.

By telling you this situation

I want to bring to your attention that it is possible to find hope in the hardest of situations

Because if there was any lesson that I got from this book

How did Viktor Frankl able to survive the hardest experience?

Not through just luck, grit, or strength - although all these did have a massive part.

But it was his choice to be in control of the environment he had been thrust upon.

💬

“A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes - within the limits of endowment and environment- he has made out of himself. In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.”

―

Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

There's a moment that I remember from the book and I can't remember the reference exactly.

He talks about finding beauty in a flower or a sunrise.

These were the things they couldn’t take from him.

Here's the quote that I think is referencing to these moments

💬

“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”

―

Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Okay, so this is going to be a hard transition back from WW2 to my apartment situation now.

But you have your list.

You are now planning for the worst but hoping for the best.

What’s next?

4. Get some advice

I talked to my girlfriend after this.

I came with the situation and more important I came with options.

Most importantly I came to the situation now calmly since I already had processed it

This helped smooth the news a lot.

But to Vaidile's credit, she absolutely smashed it.

She brought in amazing options and enthusiasm in the situation.

Which I am super grateful for.

My calm attitude and her enthusiasm really brought the best out of the uncomfortable situation.

We found a way to choose to look at the positives out of this.

So that’s what we have done.

And at each step, we have followed this same process.

From needing to move out of our apartment, to needing to sell or donate our possessions.

We’ve really embraced the process.

Has there been a few tears?

Oh most definitely - this was our wee home.

It was our safe space during the pandemic years.

But we have done our best to navigate it with a sense of control and ease.

So I’ll end it here but ask you some questions.

• Do you have a fallback routine or something you can do in the event of an unexpected situation?

It could be exercise, meditation, prayer, get into nature. It’s a personal thing so whatever works for you.

• Do you have a way to handle unexpected stressful situations?

Maybe something else works well for you feel free to share it either with me directly in emails or dms. Or if you’re comfortable you can share it in the comments on my socials so more people will get to benefit from your experience.

But I’m wishing you all the best folks.

If you are going through a stressful situation I hope you got something positive out of this writing

But as always thanks for reading.

P.s. If you'd like writing like these dropped into your inbox - feel free to subscribe. It would be great to reach you wherever is easiest.

But it wouldn’t be a weekly newsletter without a recap of some interesting/cool things that’s happened in the past week, would it?

1. Handling health issues as a Digital Nomad.

I may look like a budget Superman, Clark Kent (or so I’m told - which my ego enjoys) but unfortunately, I do get sick.

This happened the past week but it does give me a great chance to talk about how to handle these situations whenever you’re living in your non-home country.

I’ll keep it short and simple since this is just a recap.

1. Do the same things as you do at home. Rest, recover, go to a pharmacy, go to a hospital if it’s needed.

2. Oh but isn’t that expensive. Pharmacy prescriptions are generally affordable. That just leaves hospital visits.

For the most part, a check up is affordable but if it is an actual emergency and serious this is where it can get expensive.

That’s why it’s important to have travel insurance.

I use Safety Wing it’s designed specifically for the nomad lifestyle.

I can’t vouch (thankfully) for the process of them handling hospital visits.

But it’s a peace of mind knowing that I am covered in extreme events.

And like we’ve already talked about unexpected stressful situations can and will probably happen.

In fact, I crashed and fell in a motorbike accident 6 years ago.

I didn’t have travel insurance (I was pretty broke). But that was silly and I got lucky.

Sure there is a little bone that sticks up on my shoulder but it could have been so much worse so I am grateful.

So if you are travelling just get yourself some insurance

2.  32 T-shirt mystery

Here’s a genuine mystery. If you can figure this one out please let me know.

Last week we made a sale of 31 T-shirts all with the same Christmas design on it.

Oh, how is this strange I hear you ask?

This is probably just a big family Christmas reunion coming up.

That’s what I thought until I checked out the order.

It’s 32 Christmas shirts but the order was for 32 men’s shirts.

Now this.

To me is a mystery.

Why is there a group of 31 men out spending over $500 there who all want to have a matching Christmas T-shirt?

Is this like 2 football teams including the bench?

Like what could this be?

I keep thinking of scenarios but every time it just sounds weird.

Also what guys would be this organised to have these shirts ordered a month in advance before Christmas?

Come on

It has to be some sort of Christmas cult I’m thinking.

Or an Andrew Tate convention or something

But it is an unsolved mystery

3.  Road trip to mountains and black lava

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Last week I went on a road trip with my good friend Haren.

We drove to the top of a mountain and then made our way close to the volcano here on Bali

In fact we even got to stand on “black lava”

Which is actually lava but it has cooled and hardened over the years.

It was super fun one of those experiences that you remember.

Over the past few years, we all got stuck in shitty places

It’s feels good to be able to do some of the things I would be doing pre-pandemic

4.  Black Friday Headspace Deal 🙌

I know this looks like a blatant ad for Headspace - but I get nothing for putting this here. I just really believe in the benefits of meditating.

And Headspace is the best meditation app I've ever used.

It's not woo-woo. It's simple, down-to-earth and approachable for everyone.Listening to Andy is a real joy and a little bit of calm that has helped me so much over the years.Paid or not I'll keep recommending Headspace as I think everybody could benefit from a little bit more of you time. (It was even my 1st ever video on YouTube 15,000 Minutes of Meditation: The 3 Stages You'll Experience)

It's all about taking a time out for yourself and that's all it is.It's their biggest sale of the year. 50% off so it's a great deal that I just had to share.I've got it, Vaidile just signed up for a year.It's like £30 - that's like 3 pints in London but it's a year of mental well-being support.If you still aren't sure whether to drop the £30 and want to try it out first you can even use my friend link which gets you a 30-day free pass.

Again no kickback for me with this link but if you do decide to join drop me a message so we can celebrate together 🥳

And that's all folks.

Chat soon

Matt

🫶

P.p.s let me know if the pictures & video made the read more interesting this week.