Plans Are Nothing, Planning is Everything
Our ability to make plans is an important skill and a key part of our personal and professional growth. But what’s even more important than knowing how to make a plan is being skilled in the art of planning, which includes the ability to acquire and process new information so that you can move past the friction points you’ll encounter as soon as you set a plan into motion. In this episode I share three steps you can take to strengthen the way you approach planning.
Episode Transcription
INTRO
We’re all very familiar with the importance of knowing how to make a plan. Plans help us to trace a direct line from where we are now to where we want to go and help outline the action steps we think we need to get there.
But what’s even more important than knowing how to make a plan is to become someone who is skilled in the art of planning, which is the ability to acquire and process new information so that you can move past the inevitable friction points that you’ll encounter as soon as you set a plan into motion. Let’s talk about how to do that. Here we go.
EPISODE
I work a lot with entrepreneurs and professionals on how to change their workday, and change the direction of their career and their lives.
And anytime I work with people on helping them to make these changes, there’s always an aspect of planning that’s involved. We’ve all been exposed to lots of messaging about how planning is critical when it comes to making any kind of changes you want to see.
Over the years, I’ve been someone who has loved making plans like I’m sure many of you do – whether that’s in the form of lists, or action plans, or business plans, or even plans about how you budget time during your workday.
We love plans because at the outset, when we create them in a vacuum, they help us to trace a direct line from where we are now to where we want to go.
There’s a major sense of comfort and clarity that comes with knowing and believing that step A will lead to step B which will lead to step C.
In other words when you make a plan, you’re creating an image of a path forward.
And at the point when you’re making a plan, the path forward is relatively clear, because the goal is clear and we’ve mapped out clear steps that will get us there, and our brain sort of automatically assumes that all we need to do is just follow the path and it will lead to achievement of the goal.
But inevitably, as soon as we start to take actions and as soon as we set the plan in motion, major parts of our plan become somewhat useless as soon as we start. And the reason major parts of our plan becomes useless is because “when we take action, we either encounter some friction point that we couldn’t have accounted for at the outset, OR we learn a new piece of information that influences and changes the nature of the plan.” We learn something or have a shift in mindset or encounter an obstacle that interrupts that clear vision of the path forward.
And this where we often get stuck. We thought we had a clear path forward, and we thought we had already answered the question of how we were going to get there.
And what happens next is the biggest mistake we make when it comes to making plans. When we encounter that friction and resistance, “we mistake our inability to map out the exact steps with the value of our idea.”
In other words, we think that our inability to understand the steps toward our goal means that our goal isn’t achievable or that our idea wasn’t a good one.
Looking back at my own life, I can’t tell you how often I abandoned a great idea that was filled with inspiration right out of the gate because as soon as I went about trying to set my plan into action, I encountered resistance and friction that I hadn’t accounted for, and then I immediately went from having a clear vision of the path to one that was no longer clear.
And what happens when we can’t see the entire path forward is we get scared and anxious because we love certainty.
We want answers to ALL of the questions we have about how it’s going to work, when it’s going to happen, who’s involved, what it’ll take for us to get there.
Our minds want us to understand everything before we move forward because we want to eliminate as much risk as possible before we commit, and we want protection and certainty. Our default mindset makes us uncomfortable and suspicious of the unknown.
So when we don’t know the answers, our mind sounds the alarm and it wants to pull the chute immediately.
We also tend to start beating up on ourselves immediately because the plan we made isn’t working and we can’t figure out all of the exact steps that will get us there. We start to tell ourselves “You know what, if I’m encountering friction already, that must mean that this wasn’t such a good idea after all.”
And I can tell you, having worked with hundreds of people on how to make plans for their workday and their career, in my view this initial disruption of the clear path that we envisioned is one of the key reasons why we don’t make plans and why we abandon goals that we set for ourselves.
So if this is a major mindset obstacle for us, how do we start to address it? Well this is where the title of this episode comes into play.
There’s a great quote that’s attributed to Dwight Eisenhower, and the quote goes something like this: “Plans are nothing, planning is everything.”
So what does that mean.
If you think about what it takes for something to go from a great idea to an actual end result, it’s impossible to account for all of the variables that will come into play along the way. It’s almost impossible to map something step by step with pinpoint accuracy without some sort of deviation.
So when we make a plan, we have to acknowledge from the outset that the plan as we have outlined it, is probably going to change. We have to get comfortable with the fact that we don’t have all the information we need to accomplish the end goal, and that there naturally will be some uncertainty as we move forward.
And we also have to stop thinking that when we can’t see the entire path forward, that doesn’t mean our idea is bad or unworthy of pursuing or unattainable; it just means that we don’t have enough information yet.
It doesn’t mean that we can’t do it, it just means that we haven’t learned HOW to do it yet.
So what we need to do is separate ourselves from viewing our inability to comply with the plan as a failure.
And this is where I think the genius of this quote comes in. It’s not about following the plan point by point. The plan is not the prize.
It’s the ACT of planning that’s the most valuable part of the process.
When you take the time to plan, it forces you to map out and think through what you want. It helps you to define a destination, and it helps to solidify your purpose for undertaking this particular journey in the first place.
It helps you to identify potential roadblocks and just the mere act of planning helps to start churning your idea mill.
So the true value is in the act of planning, and not the plan itself.
SO. Then the question becomes, how do we become better at planning and adapting and moving through all of this uncertainty so that we can achieve the end goal that we had in mind? In other words how do we move away from focusing on the plan to being able to extract the incredible value that comes from the act of planning?
The answer to this is through taking action. It’s only through taking action that we end up gathering the information that we need to make it to the next step. We can sit in a room, and we can listen to podcasts, and we ca ntry to strategize all day about how we want to change our workday, or how we want to improve our business, or how we want to change careers, but none of that really matters until we actually go about taking action.
Every time you take an action, you acquire new information that you can use to choose your next step. This is information that you never would have learned if you hadn’t taken a preceding action. It’s the kind of information that ONLY comes from taking action. It’s not something you can research or plan for.
So let me give you a simple visual as a starting point. I want you to imagine that you’re hiking in the mountains. And what you’re trying to do is get to a hilltop that you can see several miles off in the distance. And in between you and this hilltop is a very thick, densely wooded forest, and it’s so dense that you can’t see any kind of path from where you’re standing now to the hilltop you want to get to.
All you can really see is five or ten feet in front of you and it’s just a bunch of trees and bushes that are in your line of vision.
Now if you’ve ever been on a hike like this, what happens when you take a couple of steps forward?
Every time you take a step forward, you open a new field of vision. You move past a few of the things that were blocking your line of sight – some trees, some bushes - and now you have a different perspective.
You basically acquire a new set of information and a new set of data points that allow you to view the next few steps in a different light and see the hilltop with a little more clarity.
And of course this viewpoint and this information is something that you never would have uncovered or known had you not taken that first step.
With a lot of the things we do, this is the true nature of how we accomplish goals. It’s a series of mini planning sessions that are conducted every time we encounter new information. Sometimes that new information will change the plan, sometimes it won’t. But we have to be open to the process.
And the more accepting we are of this process, the easier it will be to not only use new information but also engage in even better planning – because we’ve removed our desire to have to KNOW the answer to every question. We have to stop getting hooked on trying to know every step that’s involved in the process - because it’s impossible to know every step. As soon as we let go of that desire to know how it’s all going to work, that’s the point at which we have the ability to use what we learn to move forward.
So with this in mind I want to leave you with an actionable takeaway. You can easily apply this analogy to your career path, to your business, or to your workday.
When you ago about mapping a vision for a change you want to make, if you get started and the plan you made immediately becomes obsolete, or if you’re getting bogged down in the details and you’re feeling that friction, I want you to remember that this is a natural part of the process and that it’s time for you to take the new information you’ve learned and engage in another round of planning.
If this is happening to you, I want you to take these three steps.
Just so we can work with an example, let’s say that the goal I have is to create a side business that I have some interest in. I have a 9-5, but I want to start an online business on the side. When I originally came up with this idea, I had a burst of enthusiasm and I made a plan, but now that I’ve started to research it and take some action, I’m getting discouraged.
So how would I work through this.
Step 1 is to Spend MORE time concentrating on the vision you have for the change you want to see. If you want to make a change, you must always hold the end ideal at the forefront of your mind.
When we keep the outcome that we want at the forefront of our mind, and have a clear picture of the change we want to see, that desire ends up seeping into the day to day, moment to moment thoughts we have and it helps us to imprint those thoughts onto our brain and we see opportunity differently.
When I move through my day focused on the change that I want to see, I notice that a lot of the time the answers are right in front of me, but I just wasn’t paying close enough attention to realize that they’re right there.
So in my example, I’d start by waking up every morning and engaging in some concentrated, purposeful thinking about how awesome it would be to have this new business and I’m keeping that vision of my end goal top of mind as I move throughout my day.
Step 2: Ask: “What’s at the root of the friction I’m experiencing?
In other words, instead of just realizing there’s a roadblock and becoming anxious or frustrated about it, spend some actual time applying a critical eye to why.
So here’s a couple of common reasons why we get tripped up:
Is it because you need more information?
Is it because you have a limiting belief that’s telling you you can’t do it?
Maybe it’s because you’re not talking to the right people. A big part of making changes is talking to people who actually have made the changes we want to make. So we might share our idea with someone we know but they might not give us the kind of advice we need because they’ve never done what we want to do before.
Is it because you haven’t given it enough time to work and take shape?
Is this something that you still want? Maybe the thing you thought you wanted isn’t what you want at all, and that’s ok.
But in this step what I want you to do is really nail down where that friction is coming from. And as always, I’d suggest that you write it down.
And then finally Step 3 is “What’s the very next single action I can take that will move me closer to my goal or give me more information?”
Here, we’re not trying to get too wrapped up in the ten point plan we made or all the things we COULD do, I just want you to focus on ONE action you can take that will help you move closer to the hilltop we talked about.
We’re trying to get more information so that we can use that information to unstick ourselves and move past the blockage we’re experiencing.
So in my example, it might be:
Looking for online courses or coaches who can teach me how to start a business
Reading some personal development books that help me move through my doubt
I could speak with someone who’s ACTUALLY started a business and see what their advice is. There are lots of actions I can take to start to move past this block.
The point here is to not be paralyzed by too much thought and to put action at the center of the discovery process.
Remember that it’s not about the plan, it’s about your willingness to accept that you’ll never know all the steps from the outset, and understanding that your inability to know every single step doesn’t mean you can’t achieve that end goal. It just means you need more information. And it’s taking action that inevitably opens up a new field of vision that leads to the information you need to take the next action. That’s really how we achieve our goals and make it to our hilltop.
Go have a great workday.