How to Stay Calm When Things Don’t Go to Plan

A lot of outdoor problems start out as small inconveniences. You take the wrong turn, the weather changes, something breaks or the route takes longer than expected. The problem is often not the original mistake, but what happens next. Staying calm gives you a much better chance of thinking clearly and dealing with whatever has happened.

Stop and Take Stock

When something goes wrong, the first temptation is often to immediately do something about it. That can be useful, but rushing into a decision before you understand the situation can make things worse.

Stop for a moment and work out what has actually happened. If you’ve taken a wrong turn, don’t start walking faster in the hope that you’ll somehow find the route again. If your equipment has broken, don’t immediately try to fix it while you’re frustrated. Give yourself a moment to think.

A short pause can be surprisingly valuable.

Separate the Problem From the Panic

It is easy for your mind to turn one problem into several.

You might think you’ve missed a turning, which means you’re lost, which means you’ll be late, which means you’ll run out of daylight and everything is going wrong. In reality, you may simply have walked past a junction.

Try to separate what you know from what you are worried might happen. Deal with the actual problem first.

Go Back to What You Know

When you’re unsure what to do next, return to information you can trust.

If you’re navigating, check the map rather than relying on your memory of where you think you are. If the weather has changed, look at the conditions around you rather than assuming they will improve. If you have a route plan, check where you expected to be and compare that with where you actually are.

You don’t have to solve the entire situation at once. Establishing where you are and what has changed is often enough to make the next decision much easier.

Slow Down Your Decisions

Being calm doesn’t mean being slow for the sake of it. It means giving yourself enough time to make sensible decisions.

If you’re cold, tired, frustrated or under pressure, you may feel that you need to sort everything out immediately. Sometimes the safest decision is to slow down, find somewhere suitable to stop and work through your options one at a time.

Ask yourself what needs dealing with now, what can wait and what isn’t actually a problem.

Don’t Be Afraid to Change the Plan

A route plan is useful, but it isn’t a promise that you have to follow regardless of what happens.

Perhaps the weather has become worse than expected. Maybe someone in the group is more tired than you anticipated. You might discover that a path is flooded, blocked or much more difficult than expected.

Changing the plan isn’t necessarily a failure. Sometimes it is simply the sensible response to new information.

Turning around, taking a shorter route or heading somewhere safer can be a much better decision than continuing just because that was the original intention.

Deal With One Problem at a Time

When several things go wrong together, it can feel overwhelming.

Imagine that it has started raining, someone is tired and you’ve also realised you’re not on the route you expected. You don’t need to solve all three things simultaneously.

Get everyone somewhere sensible first. Then deal with the immediate need. Once that is under control, work out the navigation problem. After that, decide what the rest of the journey should look like.

Breaking a difficult situation into smaller problems makes it much easier to manage.

Don’t Let Frustration Make the Decisions

Getting annoyed is perfectly normal. You can be frustrated because you’ve made a mistake, because the weather has ruined your plans or because something you were relying on has stopped working.

The important thing is not allowing that frustration to make your decisions for you.

You don’t want to take a risky shortcut simply because you’re fed up with the route. You don’t want to ignore a problem because you don’t want to admit that the original plan isn’t working. Give yourself enough time to separate how you feel from what actually needs to be done.

Use the People Around You

If you’re with other people, don’t try to solve everything yourself.

Someone else might have noticed something you missed, remember part of the route or come up with a simple solution that hadn’t occurred to you. Talk through the problem rather than allowing everyone to become stressed individually.

If you’re leading a group, your behaviour can also affect everyone else. You don’t need to pretend that nothing has gone wrong. Simply staying composed and explaining what you’re going to do next can give everyone confidence.

Look After the Basics

Small problems become harder to deal with when you’re already exhausted, thirsty, hungry or cold.

If you’ve been walking for hours and something goes wrong, take a moment to consider whether the group needs food, water, extra clothing or a proper rest before making the next decision.

You may be surprised how much clearer a situation looks after everyone has had a drink and a few minutes to recover.

Remember That Mistakes Happen

Even experienced people make mistakes outdoors.

You can miss a turning, misjudge a distance, forget something from your kit or underestimate how long a route will take. Making a mistake doesn’t mean the whole day is ruined.

What matters is recognising it and deciding what to do next.

In fact, small mistakes can become useful lessons. If you repeatedly find yourself running out of daylight, for example, that tells you something about how you need to plan future trips.

Know When to Ask for Help

Staying calm doesn’t mean handling everything alone.

If a situation is beyond what you can safely manage, ask for help. That might mean contacting someone you’re travelling with, getting advice from an experienced person or, in a genuine emergency, contacting the emergency services.

There is no prize for turning a manageable problem into a serious one because you were reluctant to admit that you needed assistance.

Keep the Situation in Perspective

When you’re standing in the rain trying to work out where you went wrong, it can feel like the biggest problem in the world.

Sometimes it is serious and needs dealing with quickly. Other times, it is simply an inconvenient part of being outdoors.

Try to focus on what you can control. You can check the map. You can put on another layer. You can take a break. You can change the route. You can turn around.

You don’t need to control everything that happens. You just need to make the best decision you can with the information you have.

Calm Is a Skill You Can Practise

Staying calm isn’t something that only matters when a major emergency happens. You can practise it during ordinary outdoor trips whenever something doesn’t go according to plan.

The next time you miss a turning or discover that the weather has changed, resist the urge to immediately react. Stop, breathe, work out what has actually happened and decide what needs to happen next.

The more often you approach problems this way, the easier it becomes to keep a clear head when something genuinely unexpected happens.