How Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail

Having no plan before you begin anything means you’ve already failed.

When I was younger I never made any plans. Everything was very sporadic and spur of the moment. My friends and I would go from playing in the park one moment to swimming next. The only consistency in my life at that time was that I was always craving ice cream and making plans to somehow get more.

I lived my life like this for a very long time. Constantly in the moment and never thinking ahead towards the future. Living my life one small goal at a time. It was amazing. The best way to spend childhood is by living in the moment. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Every day was a new adventure in the unknown.

The older I got the harder it became to maintain a lifestyle like this. Sure, it always sounds nice to say to someone you are talking to in a bar. Making it seem like your life is full of excitement. It soon became apparent to me that this wasn’t a recipe for a lifestyle I wanted to lead, and that made me question what it was I wanted.

The simple answer: stability.

I now plan my days. From how much time I get to spend on the phone, what meal I will be prepping for the week, and how long I’ll spend on the computer. You don’t have to plan out everything, sometimes all we need is a rough outline in our minds and stick to that. The hardest part of planning is sticking to the plan. It’s easy to go off the rails with distractions.

The modern world is full of distractions. Whether it be social media or that new show that just dropped on Netflix. Things that can lead to laziness won’t give you the results you so desperately crave. However, I’m not saying it’s always a bad thing to give in to distractions. I’d argue some distractions are a necessary evil to a healthy life. Making sure you plan time to enjoy the things you like is very important to your overall success in life. Just try not to make distractions a habit.

I think it’s also worth mentioning that you don’t need to completely let go of your impulsivity and become a drone. Your main goals don’t need to be work, eat, sleep, and repeat. Repetition and monotony are almost as worse as constantly trying to live in the moment. Both of these things have something in common though, and that is the trap of comfortability.

People get too comfortable doing the same thing day in and day out and forget to push themselves. Always push yourself to do better than the day before and if you slip up, that’s okay. Just get back up and keep trying.

I try not to talk down on myself anymore. Talking down to myself leads to nothing but self-pity. Instead, I focus on building myself up and patting myself on the back for the little things. It can be something as small as getting up and out of bed in the morning.

It gets the ball rolling for the rest of the day. When I accomplish one thing and feel good about it, I want to keep the momentum going and accomplish more things to feel good about.

The most important thing is to constantly remind yourself why it is you want to accomplish your goal. Are you doing it for a better life for you, your kids, and your significant other? Visualize what life may look like if you just give up on your goals and compare that to what might happen if you finally accomplish your goals.

What is your plan and why is it important to you? Your plan should lead to a goal, and it’s important to have many different plans that are all apart of the master plan. The master plan is the number one thing in the world you want to accomplish.

Don’t be derailed by something so insignificant that in a year you won’t remember it. Make sure you are always focusing on the good not the bad. It’s very simple yet effective at staying on track to following through with your plans.

Having little plans that lead to goals you can accomplish every day is so much more important than starting with one big master plan. It’s like wanting to make more money and your only plan of action to make that happen is simply “Make more money.”

Plans need to be precise and exact down to every last detail.

This might put some people off, but it is extremely important. These are your plans after all to accomplish your goals. Do you think Fortune 500 companies write up a half-ass plan, look at it and go, “Eh, close enough.”?

Work on your plan, stay committed, and never stop trying. You can do great things, just plan to do great things.

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