Interruptions. Unforeseen events. Wrong strategies. All this is possible for companies and also for careers. In 2020, we don’t have to look very far in the past to see how the best business and professional plans can go wrong due to a surprising and unpredictable event. We could wrap it up, well that’s life. No one has ever guaranteed us long-term certainty. This is true. Unannounced and unintended curveballs are part of life’s rotation, but that doesn’t mean we can’t proactively prepare for sudden changes and develop agility that can result in competitive advantage and success despite disruptions.

Many of us still operate a model that sees the hardest parts of running a career as first determining which career path to pursue, followed by education and training, landing the great job, keeping a job, and keeping up with best practices. As important as these characteristics are, I would recommend adding at least one more, improving your ability to predict where your career will head and what dangers may ambush your planning.

Regarding our careers, it is wise to spend time and energy on a future planning style that incorporates intentional forecasting of trends and movements that carry the potential for threats and disruptions. Although no one can definitively predict the future, by practicing projection formation over time we can hone our ability to make predictions more accurately, test our hypotheses, and delve deeper and deeper into what makes our professions tick. Sharpening our forecasting skills could make the difference between prospering or losing in today’s turbulent economy.

Preparing for the future requires a change in attitude from the beginning and challenging our assumptions. Here are some basic guesses that I encourage you to review. Good times don’t pass forever. Luck can only take you so far. The world is more dynamic than static. With that said, tweak how you plan for tomorrow. Planning for the future should not be limited to evaluating the present and then looking ahead. Rather, determine as best you can the most likely future perception and plan backward from there.

Interpreting the future is a matter of creating a vision. This vision shows greater resolution the deeper our knowledge of our profession, including the inclinations of markets and customers. Vision is not certainty, but an estimate of what is possible. The more we know, the closer we get to perfecting our analysis. Therefore, structured continuous learning is the main activity to practice. By looking at all angles of our profession, including the influences and disruptions that affect our lines of work, along with practicing making and reviewing our predictions, we are better prepared to make forecasts. There will always be opportunities. Become your own agent of change and a magnet to locate these possibilities.

Smart organizations implement a strategic method known as scenario planning. It involves anticipating and integrating a high degree of flexibility into long-term planning. Scenario planning assumes that adaptation is necessary for survival. The same mindset applies to our careers. In general, this process involves merging known facts about the future, such as demographics, geographical limitations, cultural characteristics, government structures, etc. with social, economic, political, technical and environmental trends. From this combination, we can formulate simulations that work as prototype strategies. For example, is it feasible to think that climate-related disturbances may manifest themselves in novel ways over the next three decades, causing potentially sudden market fluctuations? Are you sure the United States has learned its lesson about preparing for a pandemic and is ready for the next such attack?

Developing a heuristic approach to preparing for uncertainty may very well be the necessary system to better withstand whatever the future holds next.