What If ...
When I go down the What If path, I feel like my mind looks like this pile of driftwood; it’s a mess and everything is cluttered.
Years ago, when I was teaching junior high (grades 7 – 9), I had a mentor that used a phrase I’ll never forget. While I can’t remember the reason he was in my classroom talking to my class, I remember the interaction well. He was the Assistant Principal and the students were peppering him with questions about what he would do if they did x? Then they’d ask what about if they did y? They kept lobbing questions and he looked at them and said:
“I don’t play What If. I play What Is.”
End of story. End of their questions. And I thought it was brilliant.
His intent was that they could come up with scenarios all day long and he would never be able to have a consequence for each thing they imagined. And in that situation, it did not serve him to determine a slew of individual consequences for a ton of real and imagined situations.
What he meant was simply that he would evaluate the situation and determine the consequence at that time. There were so many possibilities; so many mitigating circumstances that you would need a giant book to track the myriad of options.
I often refer to that phrase when I am going down a mental road of possibilities. What if this happens? What would I do? What about if that happens? Getting caught in this loop does not serve me and so I remind myself of that phrase. I am an intelligent person and I believe in my ability to assess a situation and determine what I am going to do.
That is not to say that I don’t brainstorm possibilities or reactions. Having contingency plans is important. Getting caught up in all the what ifs is not helpful. I can tell the difference in how I react. Am I logical in how I process the contingencies, or do I start fulling playing out the scenarios like a script? If I can brainstorm from a logical, rather than an emotional, state, I can avoid the death mind spiral.
Playing the What If game can be dangerous to our mental and emotional well-being. When I go down that slide, I second guess myself and suffer from Imposter Syndrome.
I recently found myself caught in this What If loop. We are planning a trip this summer and need new passports for the kids. I had read a couple of threads in one group about how it was taking 8 weeks to process passports and that unless you were travelling within 2 business days, you couldn’t even go directly to Passport Canada.
Our trip is in about 8 weeks, so I went down the What If slide hard and fast. I was stressed and overwhelmed which negatively affected my ability to rationally think through the situation.
It took a friend to figuratively put their hand up in a stop right there position (but who literally said, “Stop!”) to pull me out of the disaster zone that had formed in my head. She pushed me to think about all the alternatives and options and to start evaluating them one by one. I started writing down the questions I needed answered and where I could go to find those answers, and I started brainstorming possible solutions. Not all the solutions were viable, but at least they were out in front of me. From there, I could attack each thing one by one. Eventually, I found some back up support and a plan that I could feel comfortable with.
This process moved me from the emotional, fear-based reaction I was having, into a logical, helpful solution-seeking journey. That shift was powerful to move me towards feeling in control.
When you find yourself caught in the What If loop, stop yourself (or enlist a friend to help you recognize it). As a leader, your job is to help identify this loop in others and then coach them through it (see this blog post) (and not simply solve it for them). The next time you find yourself sliding down into that powerless twist, pay attention. Recognize it for what it is and name it, then work yourself back out.
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