At a party last weekend, I spent some time talking to a young man whose company was contemplating layoffs. One of my coaching clients wants to talk about what she and her husband should do if his company cuts his hours and his pay.

There are a lot of people in similar situations. Maybe you’re one of them. Maybe you’re trying to plan for an emergency in your life or career.

Public safety planners would call that a critical incident. A critical incident doesn’t happen often, but it has a huge impact when it does.

In public safety, a tornado or hazardous materials spill would be a critical incident. In your life, getting laid off probably qualifies.

You can plan for your possible critical incidents the way that public safety officials plan for the ones they might face. Start by making a list of potential critical incidents.

With coaching clients, I’ve found that spending a few days on the project gets the best results. That way you can make your list, and then add to it as you think of new things.

Be sure to involve the important people in your life. If you’re in a relationship, make separate lists and then compare them. Include natural disasters and things like a house fire. Be sure to include economic critical incidents.

Once you’ve got your list, make a plan for dealing with it. Plan for the most devastating events first.

For financial critical incidents, make sure you include things to make yourself less vulnerable. Pay down those credit cards. Build up your emergency reserve. Shift your life into lean mode.

Write out your critical incident plans. Writing out the plan makes it more likely that you’ll consider everything and include all the necessary details. Then put your plans somewhere safe.

Planning for possible critical incidents in your life give you two benefits. First, you’re as ready as possible if something happens. Planning before you’re under pressure means you’re more likely to be thorough and make good decisions about priorities.

Having a plan is a stress reducer. It’s a lot easier to deal with uncertainty if you know how you’re going to handle different situations.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 at 3:28 pm and is filed under Tools and Strategies for Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.