Recently, I saw a television programme about the psychology of surviving at sea. It struck me as I was watching that a number of the factors that led to successful survival at sea after disaster struck also applied to those who survived debt problems successfully.
Once disaster has struck you are better able to survive if you
get organised
The programme showed two life rafts, one where the crew member leading it
got folk organised into a regular pattern of life and one which had no regular
pattern of life. The people in the life raft where they were organised were
stronger physically when they were rescued than those who were not organised.
Getting organised is also very important when a financial disaster hits
your household. If the disaster is losing a job, then part of that routine
needs to be looking for a job. One of the big dangers or losing a job, especially
if it had seemed a secure job, is sinking into a depression that makes it
harder to fight back and get a new job. Another feature of getting organised
is keeping lenders informed of the situation. The first time my husband
was made redundant we had regular meetings with one of the assistant bank
managers to review our financial situation. They knew our situation and
were able to offer some practical support.
Lack of discipline can lead to death
Discipline here literally means taking control of the situation. If you
take control of the water and food supplies and do not overdo consumption,
then you are better able to survive. In a debt situation, the same applies
to food and water supplies that can be replaced but that you have no money
to replace. Your choice then becomes, do you make your situation worse or
avoid overdoing expenditure on food and water. There is a balance here though.
If a household spends a lot of money on take away food or ready made meals,
then there is room for trimming the food budget, but if they are already
surviving on little more than bread and water then it is rather difficult.
The first reaction is denial
In other words, you keep on behaving as if nothing has happened. The problem
with this is that it stops us checking the situation and making changes
accordingly. This denial may include things like not opening bills, not
opening bank statements and not checking balances at the hole in the wall
machine. It can also mean not sharing the problem with significant others
in your life. There are people who do not tell their partners that their
job has ended and keep behaving as if they are still working for a time
so making the situation worse.
If you overreact you can make the situation worse
The classic example of this is the Marie Celeste. Well something must have
happened to cause the crew to abandon ship yet they found the ship, but
they never found the crew. If the crew abandoned ship because they thought
she was going to sink, then they made a big mistake as she was found floating
and empty. The same is true with debt problems. For example, you have no
money coming into the bank, so you cancel all the direct debits going out.
Sounds OK until you realise that the electricity bill will need to be paid
sooner or later and that by canceling your agreement to pay them on a monthly
basis you will have a large quarterly bill to pay and you may lose any discount
you gained by paying using a monthly direct debit.
If you don't give up then you can survive
One of the biggest psychological obstacles to survival is thinking that
you will not survive. It's that old adage, if you think you can then you
can but, if you think you can't then you can't. The program gave a number
of examples of how people who faced circumstances that should have overwhelmed
them but which they survived, simply because they refused to think that
they would not survive. Debt can bring tremendous stress and strain to any
relationship. Money problems are often cited as a popular cause of relationship
breakdown. Yet those problems are surmountable with the right attitude and
with the right attitude your relationship will survive as well.
Preparation for possible problems is essential
One of the people featured in the survival program had packed a
bag with various items, just in case. They had thought about what problems
they may encounter in the future and made plans that would help them overcome
them. In other words, they had taken out a form of insurance so that if
the worst happened then they could cope better. In terms of a household,
this could be maintaining a stock of food and other useful household supplies
so that if there is no money coming in for a while, you can cope. It could
also literally mean organising an insurance policy so that if the contents
of your home are damaged by fire, flood, accident or you are burgled, then
it is easier making a new start.
If solving the immediate issue seems impossible then try again
until you find the right solution
One of the sailors featured had a problem after an accident when
a speargun damaged his inflatable life raft. He tried for 10 days to repair
this damage using the standard repair technique and failed each time. He
then realised that there was a way to adapt this technique
a bit and, this time it worked. The damaged life raft was a very uncomfortable
place to be and it was not able to take him to a place of safety. He tried
another plan that worked. If he had given up then he would not have survived.
Well there are a number of plans that help you pay back debt. For example,
you can pay the lowest amount first so that you get a buzz by having a bill
paid or you can pay the bill with the highest interest rate first so that
you can save the most amount of money. You could try a consolidation loan
and then get into a mess again. You could try restricting your spending
and struggle to meet your goals. However, if you stop and think and come
up with another plan that you can put into action, you will eventually find
a way out of the hard times.
Survival may seem a huge task but it is also a series of small
tasks
Some of those in the survival program had realised that they might need
to survive for many days before they found a safe place. They felt the whole
thing was beyond them but they took each day as a challenge and if they
got through that successfully they started on a new challenge the next day.
Each day became a new challenge and gradually the number of challenges they
had successfully, completed increased and this added to their confidence.
The same is true for surviving debt problems. Paying back the whole sum
of thousands of pounds may seem impossible, yet broken down into a series
of stages, it seems possible. After all, if anyone stopped to think just
how much they had borrowed to buy a house they might recoil in horror, but
then we talk about making monthly repayments for many years in order to
repay the loan.
Teamwork is important
In one survival situation, each member of the family had their own role
and worked together as a team and this greatly increased their chances of
survival. The same is true with financial matters. If one is doing what
they can to save money and another is not then the chances of that team
surviving the situation diminishes.
Overall the acronym S.T.O.P. is very important to remember
in any survival situation. It means
Stop - Stop don't do anything else until you have worked out
what the right thing to do is.
Think - Think about what your priorities are.
Observe - Observe your surroundings so you know where you are
and what your resources are.
Plan - Plan to make best use of resources.
I think you will agree it is amazing at how the same principles required for seafarers to survive can be applied to whatever difficult circumstances you are trying to survive. They are effective whether you feel you are at risk of drowning in water or drowning in debt.
download this article as a pdf file
To read this file you will need a copy of Acrobat reader. If you have not got a copy you can download by clicking on the image below.