Reading this it seems your question was more about the second part of failing: When plan B (or C, or D) fail. Or how to reduce the likelihood that they do—or to have more realistic expectations about that.
I was once running out of options and falling back to plan C and D on a big life topic. It was related to joblessness. A previously existing plan B for such a situation had become unavailable for other reasons (also big ones but that did work out). I scrambled and got a good job offer and started to relax but they postponed the signing for weeks and weeks—while promising it would go thru. It worked out well but there was a point where I resigned and accepted a much lower economic level. Not too bad as Germany has a good safety net.
The level of the safety net depends very much on the country of course but the general pattern seems to be that few people will worry about other people’s economic mishap. Many more ways lead down than up and you are left in the dark which ways lead to the good places.
Reading this it seems your question was more about the second part of failing: When plan B (or C, or D) fail. Or how to reduce the likelihood that they do—or to have more realistic expectations about that.
I was once running out of options and falling back to plan C and D on a big life topic. It was related to joblessness. A previously existing plan B for such a situation had become unavailable for other reasons (also big ones but that did work out). I scrambled and got a good job offer and started to relax but they postponed the signing for weeks and weeks—while promising it would go thru. It worked out well but there was a point where I resigned and accepted a much lower economic level. Not too bad as Germany has a good safety net.
The level of the safety net depends very much on the country of course but the general pattern seems to be that few people will worry about other people’s economic mishap. Many more ways lead down than up and you are left in the dark which ways lead to the good places.