#488 Coping with curveballs – what to do when your day doesn’t go to plan

Squiggly Careers

The Squiggly Career

Management, Careers, Business

5 • 809 Ratings

🗓️ 15 July 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ever had your day derailed by a last-minute request? A sudden change of plan? Or that dreaded moment when you're put on the spot and don’t have the answer? In this episode, Helen and Sarah explore the curveballs that show up in our working week—and how we can respond to them with more confidence and control.

From tech fails to surprise tasks, curveballs can throw us off track and test our confidence. Helen and Sarah share personal stories, reflect on their own curveball capability, and offer practical ideas for action to help you deal with the unexpected, think on your feet, and stop small things from snowballing.

⏱️ Timestamps

00:00 Welcome to the Squiggly Careers Podcast

00:33 Day-To-Day Curveballs

05:52 Acknowledging & Receiving Curveballs

07:46 Why Curveballs Feel Hard In The Moment

09:06 Curveballs Are More Likely In Squiggly Careers

11:00 Rating Your Curveball Capability

16:55 Idea For Action — Anticipating & Thinking On The Spot

20:35 Idea For Action — Using Multiple Workarounds

26:14 Idea For Action — Avoiding Curveballs Becoming Snowballs

🎯 What You’ll Learn

- Why curveballs feel hard in the moment

- Why curveballs are more common in squiggly careers

- How to anticipate the unexpected and think on your feet

- How to stop curveballs from becoming snowballs

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Helen and I'm Sarah and this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, a weekly show where we talk about the ins outs, ups and downs of work to give you some tools and advice to help you feel a bit more confident and in control of your career.
0:15.2	And along with today's episode, we've got lots of other resources for you. So make sure you're following Amazing If, either on LinkedIn or on Instagram.
0:22.9	And sign up for our Squiggly Careers in Action newsletter.
0:25.3	It's a weekly newsletter and it has things like our pod sheet in there, our latest tools and resources.
0:30.6	Lots to help you keep learning and also ways in which you can connect with the Squiggly Careers community.
0:34.3	So today we are talking about coping with curveballs, what to do when your day
0:39.9	doesn't go to plan. I feel like we've done a few like tougher subjects recently.
0:44.8	You always go to career therapy for you and me. I don't know if this is a reflection of us.
0:48.7	So I would say, I don't know, we have had some quite big curveballs happen to us both recently.
0:54.8	I also wonder whether we create curveballs, I suspect, for other people too.
0:58.7	I thought you meant for us. I think we probably do create curveballs for the people.
1:02.0	I think we probably create curveballs. Well, and I say that. As I put this in our team's chat,
1:08.7	I said, oh, we're thinking about doing a podcast on curveballs.
1:11.6	What examples have you got? And it didn't take our team very long. I got a lot of responses
1:16.4	very quickly. And then what's so funny is one person who's a bit newer to our team said, oh, but
1:22.6	this is from other teams. Obviously, this is not for Amazing If, and I was like, oh, it's fine if it's from
1:27.8	Amazing If. And then other people felt like they had to say, oh, yeah, some of these were not,
1:32.8	were not here. It was quite funny, but we did get a lot of fast responses, which usually
1:38.0	means people recognise it as a challenge and have got lots of examples. And what we are
1:43.3	talking about today is very much day-to-day curveballs.
1:46.4	So there are those big career curveballs, which I think are the really big knotty moments
1:52.2	like restructures, redundancies, probably things like your manager leaving or big change
	...

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