Despite how much you’ve planned your pathway to success, goals can quickly become unreachable as your situation changes over time. Lacking the proper resources can put a wrench in your plan. If you set goals well, it would seem that operating with less than sufficient resources is a situation that doesn’t come up often, so why worry about it? The answer is that the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry — sometimes all the planning in the world can’t take into account unforeseen barriers to your progress. You know this on many levels.

In short, things change, interruptions arrive, and new issues emerge. In pursuit of any one of your goals, you set things in motion. The potential for two or more of them rubbing up against each other is all but guaranteed. Hence, over time, all goals, particularly maintenance goals, need continual monitoring. Perhaps you can refine your systems to the point where the monitoring is at greater intervals and requires less time and effort. You can’t get off, however, scott free.

While it’s impractical to have contingency plans for every aspect of every project in pursuit of every goal that you seek to reach, there are some common denominator behaviors and strategies worth pursuing so that you minimize the incidents of finding yourself having less resources than is required to achieve the desired ends.

Maintain a “What-if?” Orientation

In his book, Moving Mountains, General William G. Pagonis notes that during the Persian Gulf War, the U.S Forces maintained a constant state of readiness. “We began and ended every day by asking, ‘What do we do if Saddam attacks today?'” says the General. “I held large classes, open to anyone, but especially to our talented reserve forces, to discuss scenarios and potential solutions. I’d ask questions like, ‘A ship docked at Ad Dammam this morning. It’s ready to be unloaded, but the onboard crane breaks. What do you do?’ Or, ‘We suddenly find out we’re receiving 15,000 troops today instead of the usual 5,000. How do we adjust to the increase?'”

The General constantly told troops that everyone needed to do the usual Monday-morning quarterbacking on Saturday night — before problems arose. Such dry runs over potential problems proved extremely helpful when, for example, the Allied forces did receive 15,000 people on one day.”General Schwarzkopf and I were determined not to be hobbled by immobile fire bases like the ones in Viet Nam,” the author said. “Any supply network would have to be flexible, movable, and responsive to the troops.”

Constantly Look for Talent

You don’t have opposing soldiers coming your way, but your challenges can feel mighty heavy. In the business world, staff members get sick, some don’t show up on time, and some quit with little notice. No matter how effective a manager or motivator you think you are, it’s not likely that you can wield divine power over your staff.

Sometimes it’s necessary to continually interview people and to run ads even when your company and your team did not specifically require additional help. Is it a chore to interview somebody new every other week, even when you aren’t hiring? You bet. It takes time and energy, and you always had to explain to the interviewee that you have nothing in particular “open” at the moment.

Predictably, some of the people whom you interview when you’re “just looking” for talent will be whisked away by other firms.

Hence, the time you spend reading their resume, phoning them for an interview, conducting the interview, and maintaining any kind of follow-up could be seen as all for naught. Nevertheless, the habit of continually interviewing provides at least some semblance of safety in terms of being able to maintain sufficient numbers of qualified staff.

Identify Critical Suppliers and Vendors

Is there some piece of equipment in your office upon which you rely heavily? What if your computer, or some other vital, electronic gadget failed instantly and completely? Do you have a backup in place? If not, have you identified suppliers and vendors who could readily repair or replace the vital parts or equipment? Could you be back up to speed within a day? Within an hour?

Get Prepared or Suffer

Based on the nature of your work, you may already have systems in place. If you work in public safety, public health, transportation, health care and so on, your department, agency, or division may have learned the hard way over many years the vital importance of having backup systems in place.

If you work in the typical office, or work for yourself, you may not have taken the time and made the effort to establish a folder, a file, or a roster of key contact information should you need to replace something in a hurry. Now is as good a time as any to assemble such a file.

Name that Item

Buy a duplicate item if the initial item is that critical. What piece of equipment, tool, or resource is so important in your work or life, or in pursuit of your goals, that perhaps you ought to have two or three more? And, if it’s so important, why are you reticent to shell out the relatively few dollars it would cost? You’ve blown money on so many other things that were of little value, comparatively speaking.

Here’s your opportunity to reinforce your goal progress. You can steer clear of barriers, such as being under-resourced and not having a backup system in place. It’s your career and your goals, so why not be prepared!