How to practice possibility thinking

Last month I told you about what happens to crabs in a bucket and how in their panic to escape, crabs end up grabbing each other and dragging the whole group back down. I called it anti-cooperation, and proposed that one way to tackle anxiety-loaded problems is through creative reframing.

Scholars who study creative reframing start from a simple premise: unlike buckets, most problems are mental and social constructs. If we accept this premise, then solving problems often has less to do with what's actually “there” and more to do with perspective. Indeed, extensive research has suggested that by actively changing the meaning we attach to a hard situation, we can turn worry into a resource.

Now wait, before you roll your eyes at this naive worldview, let me explain!

A key outcome of creative design and possibility thinking exercises is creating an agency shift: using our imaginations helps us go from being passive acceptors of our fate to active creators of our future.

Researcher Bonde Sørensen (2025) put this to the test with a group of students heading into a brutally competitive, high-stress internship placement day. Sørensen asked participants to map out three futures: landing the dream internship, facing disappointment, or getting no placement at all.

The cool part is that over half of the participants found that mapping out their worst-case scenario was empowering. Students claimed that confronting the "worst case" head-on made their abstract anxieties concrete, which stripped the fears of their paralyzing power and allowed the students to proactively design creative backup plans. Although this research doesn’t address cooperation directly, the idea is that reducing the anxiety around a shared problem will then enhance cooperation. Similarly, if you could take away the panic from the crabs in the bucket, one of them might actually have a chance of getting out.

So, let's put the research into play and see if you can replicate these findings for yourself:

Start with your own version of "placement day," think of an important issue, pitch, or conflict that has you spiralling. Then map out two different versions of one year after “placement day”: your dream outcome AND the worst case.

Write both scenarios down in maximum detail. The more specific you are, the more you pave the way for great possible outcomes (#manifesting!) and defuse the anxiety of the unknown behind the bad.

Once it's on paper (if you're feeling artistic, it can even be fun to draw it out), run both scenarios through the "if-when" exercise.

For the dream scenario: What had to occur for you to get to this outcome? What are the controllable factors? Where are the possible holes in your plan and how will you address them?

For the worst-case: Make an actionable plan that's either a backup plan (same goal, different strategy) or a pivot (new goal). Is there something you can do today to build a psychological safety net?

Many founders have packed schedules and business strategies but fail to create a psychological game plan. I can tell you from my time as an elite athlete and later researching elite athletes, a mental game plan will make or break a championship or, in your case, a challenging context.

Much of the time, just confronting tensions will help problems appear smaller on paper than they do in your head. Sometimes it can be an elaborately laid out backup plan that gives you comfort and other times it can be as simple as a moment of grace, reminding yourself that you are worthy in every single one of those outcomes.

Dream scenario? Worthy.Backup plan? Worthy.Worst-case scenario? Still worthy.

Remember, the future is something we can take part in creating, not just something that happens to us. Let me know if you try this exercise. I read everything.

Reference:

Sørensen, K. B. (2025). The case for treating reframing and imagination as powerful life skills. Journal of Futures Studies, 30(2), 17–28. https://doi.org/10.6531/JFS.202512_30(2).0003