Crisis will really ruin your day—with a high cost. Managing a crisis successfully can make you stronger, wiser and more resilient, but avoiding it shows as much wisdom. Some work life troubles arrive entirely unexpected. For other potential dilemmas, having the foresight to see them coming protects you. Your pre-emptive action can avert a crisis.

I think most of us gratefully avoid crisis if we can. Benjamin Franklin, one of our country’s founding fathers, wisely said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Before a situation reaches critical mass, we have choices. We’re able to capably handle it, diffuse its energy and sidestep the difficulty. Unfortunately it’s too easy to postpone managing issues—and to deny or ignore the gathering clouds.

How can you avert crisis?

Be proactive. The key to avoiding crisis is to handle the situation before circumstances escalate and you find yourself in a tight spot. Thorny issues that go unattended tend to fester, become more complicated, pressure builds. Don’t wait to act.

Is there a situation that’s begging for your attention today?

Start by doing a bit of an audit of your personal and work life. We’re often too busy and distracted to step back for a moment to reflect on how things are going.

If something seems “off” and not working for you, you generally know what it is. When you think about it, you feel uncomfortable.

Is there something gnawing at you, that you feel you should be taking care of at work, with your job search, your clients or your business? How about for your physical, emotional, spiritual, financial or legal well-being?

Is it something happening on the job or with your work search?

For example—is there a project you can start now to make the road ahead easier? Are there pressing work items or paperwork left incomplete? Have communications broken down somewhere? Is there a matter that needs nipped in the bud before it gets out of hand?

If you’re going through a work search, career change or returning to work after a long absence, are you doing what you need to do each day to achieve your goals? Do you have an action plan? Are you actively exploring your work options, selecting and approaching potential employers?

Take pre-emptive action now.

Prevention is the key to avoiding crisis. We should all take a clue from Ben Franklin. With most important matters, there are usually warning signs and uneasiness, indicators of possible deep waters ahead. Today we can choose to act wisely to correct the course.

The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react. -George Bernard Shaw

Today’s question

If you’re facing a possible crisis, can you avoid an unfavorable outcome by being proactive now?