Are your plans doing what they should be?
A good plan is often paramount to success. Often we have great intentions, but without a plan which enables us to follow though, our good intentions can often stay just that – intentions.
What a good plan looks like may vary from situation to situation or person to person. If you’re building a house, a detailed plan is a very good idea, otherwise you may find you’ve finished the house but it’s minus a bathroom, or that it faces the wrong way and doesn’t get any sun. Other times a good plan is far more simple and just outlines the next step and how to ensure its success. Weight loss is a great example of that. Sometimes people come up with a very involved plan for this, for example, running 3 times a week, yoga twice a week, meditation each morning, smoothies for breakfast, half an apple for morning tea, salad for lunch… and so it goes on. The problem with a plan like this is that it’s so incredibly involved that it’s unrealistic, overwhelming and almost impossible to stick to. This means it quickly gets deviated from, and the whole plan thrown out the window. In contrast a plan that specifies just one change to make and carefully thinks out everything needed to make that one change is a far better one, as it’s far more likely to be doable, as well as sustainable into the future.
A good plan also helps you prepare for a situation that may be difficult, allowing you to go into it confident of what you want, or how you want to behave, and far more resourceful because of it. That same plan also makes it more likely you will get a satisfactory outcome, as it means going in proactive, ready to take action, and with your eyes open, ready for whatever comes your way.
Another important thing about a good plan is that you don’t necessarily need to fill in the entire picture before you start. There may be a project you want to embark on, or something you’d like to achieve, and it’s great to know that you don’t need to know every detail of how you’re going to achieve it. Often it’s just a matter of knowing the first step, and once you take that first step, the second one becomes clear. Then when you take the second step, the third one presents itself, and so that path to success unfolds itself.
Finally, a good plan thinks about the things that are needed to make the plan happen. If you aim to clean the desk in your office, a good plan will include anything that’s needed to support that, such as boxes or trays for filing documents. If you want to eat healthy snacks, a good plan will include deciding what those snacks are going to be and having them on hand long before you get hungry.
So what is it you’d like to achieve this month? And what is it that needs to happen to make that happen? What do you need to plan to make sure that your good intentions become reality?
