The Astronaut's Guide to Fear: Chris Hadfield on Preparing for the Worst

How preparing for disaster unlocks extraordinary mental strength.

You're floating in the darkest void imaginable - space itself. You're 250 miles above Earth, conducting critical repairs on the International Space Station, when suddenly your world goes black. Not metaphorically - literally. You're completely blind.

This is exactly what happened to astronaut Chris Hadfield during his first spacewalk in 2001.

The anti-fogging solution in his helmet somehow leaked into his left eye. The pain was immediate and intense. Hadfield blink reflexively, but in zero gravity, tears don't fall - they form a perfect bubble of liquid that spreads across your eye. Worse still, as he tried to blink it away, the contaminated solution spread to the other eye.

"Now I was completely blind outside of the spaceship," Hadfield remembers.

Think about that for a moment: You're blind. In space. On your first spacewalk. The Earth spins silently below you, though you can no longer see it. The infinite darkness of space surrounds you, and now it's invaded your helmet too. A single mistake could send you drifting into that void forever.

If any of us were on space and got blind, we would panic. Our heart rate would spike, our breathing would become erratic, and in the confines of a spacesuit, that kind of panic can be deadly.

But Hadfield remained calm. An old pilot's saying must have echoed in his mind: "There's not a problem you can't make worse."

For 30 long minutes, he floated in complete darkness, calmly communicating with Mission Control, waiting for his tears to naturally clear the irritant. Not only did he survive - he went on to complete his mission objectives.

When asked later about being blinded in space, Hadfield's response was remarkable in its simplicity: "If you're outside on a spacewalk and blinded, it would make you nervous and worried." But then he added something crucial: "Because of all our training and preparation, I stayed completely calm. Our natural panicky reaction doesn't happen, even if you are blinded."

This isn't just about mental control. It's about transforming what should be a catastrophe into a solvable problem. It's about preparation so thorough that even in the face of potential death, your training overrides your terror.

What kind of preparation transforms being blind in space from a death sentence into just another problem to solve? Is there something we can all learn?

The answer is a clear yes. The secret? Prepare for the worst.

Prepare for the worst

What if the rocket explodes? What if there’s an emergency? What if there’s an computer meltdown? What if I got blind? What if?

These questions may sound pessimistic, but they are not. They’re just a deliberate strategy to build the ultimate defence against fear: hard-won competence.

As Hadfield recalls from his NASA training, "We practice what we'll do if there's engine trouble, a computer meltdown, an explosion. Being forced to confront the prospect of failure head-on — to study it, dissect it, tease apart all its components and consequences — really works."

Astronauts, who are among the most competent people on Earth, don’t just learn how to behave when everything goes right. Rather, they specialise in devising bad-news scenarios that push their abilities to the test.

They just don’t learn from failures. They make failures happen. By intentionally create situations where they will fail, their learning skyrockets.

Engine trouble? They've practiced it. Computer failure? They've rehearsed it. Explosion? They've thought through every step of how to handle it.

By repeatedly facing their worst-case scenarios in controlled environments, astronauts build an unshakeable confidence. Astronauts know that whatever space throws at them, they've likely encountered something similar in their training.

When Hadfield got blinded, he had already experienced similar failures in training - and learned from his emotional reactions that overacting made things worse. That’s the power of preparing for the worst.

The more practice, the more knowledge. The more knowledge, the more competence. The more competence, the less fear. As Hadfield usually says, “The greatest antidote for fear is competence.”

From his goggles filled with water to olympic gold medal

This same principle of preparing for disaster extends far beyond space. Consider Michael Phelps at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. During the 200m butterfly final - one of the most important races of his career - his goggles began leaking. Within seconds, they filled completely with water. He was essentially swimming blind in an Olympic final.

For most swimmers, this would be catastrophic. But Phelps was different. He simply switched to his backup plan: counting strokes. He knew exactly how many strokes it took to get from wall to wall. The result? He didn't just finish the race - he won gold and set a world record while swimming blind.

How was he able to do that? He had prepared for the worst. Bob Bowman, his coach, had systematically prepared him for equipment failures. During training, Bowman would intentionally sabotage practices, even making Phelps swim in complete darkness. These weren't random drills - they were careful rehearsals for potential disasters.

And that made all the difference between a ruined Olympic final and a gold medal in world-record time.

Ask yourself: What if?

Maybe you’re an entrepreneur. Ask yourself: what if our best customer goes away? What if your best employee leaves the company? What if there’s a security breach?

Maybe you're a tennis player. Ask yourself: What if my serve fails me today? What if my opponent exploits my backhand? What if I cramp up in the fifth set? What if the wind makes my usual strategy impossible?

Maybe you're a teacher. What if your presentation technology fails mid-lecture? What if a student has a medical emergency? What if your virtual classroom platform crashes during an important exam?

The point isn't to obsess over every possible disaster. It's to build the confidence that comes from knowing you can handle things when they go wrong. Because they will go wrong. And when they do, the difference between success and failure often lies in how prepared your mindset is to face the unexpected.

When everything goes wrong, preparation turns out to be the difference between catastrophe and comeback.

This idea shapes something more fundamental than specific solutions - it builds mental resilience. When you've rehearsed disasters, even unexpected ones feel manageable. You develop what psychologists call "mental toughness" - the ability to stay focused and confident in the face of adversity.

Just like Hadfield in space and Phelps in the pool, you learn to see problems not as catastrophes, but as challenges to be solved. That's the real power of preparing for the worst - it transforms your relationship with uncertainty itself.