GrasshopperNotes.com - Thoughts for inspired living


April 26, 2010

The Problem With Planning

Filed under: John Morgan's Blog — John Morgan @ 7:21 am

Planning is a wonderful tool to have in your bag, but for many, it’s the only tool they use.

Planning is always foundational. If you have a solid plan, you can build something of worth on top of it.

My Dad was a construction foreman and always had plans in his car. He called them drawings. These would guide him on how to build the building the architect envisioned when he or she drew up the plans.

I remember many a night when my father would be looking over the drawings after dinner and saying stuff like, “This guy (architect) must have a hole in his head, this will never work.” The next day there would be a big confab with the architect and they would get things worked out.

Perhaps it’s never occurred to you that you are the architect of your life. It’s foundational in getting what you want.

The rub comes along when we plan and don’t inspect or review our plan or, worse yet, expect the plan to take care of everything.

Let’s look at both scenarios:

Have you noticed your plan isn’t working? This is accurate for the majority of us. Even if you don’t have a formal plan, you got to where you are by following a formula. The question is: “Is it working?”

The answer is usually, “No.” That’s OK because 100% of the people planned on having their marriage work out. Sometimes plans don’t work. They aren’t means tested along the way. Many don’t have a common sense foreman double checking on them. We set them and forget them and then the cracks show up in the foundation.

You cannot set and forget your life. You gotta’ get the plans out from time to time and spread them across the dining room table and have a look-see how well you are doing. You may need to make some adjustments to keep whatever you are building on solid ground.

But the biggest misuse of planning is having no action attached to whatever you are planning. This is mostly done by the “Dreamers.” This would not be a flattering use of the term “Dreamers.”

Dreamers are always planning. They have plans for more things than you can think of. They may even have a place where they store all these dreamy plans. You will easily notice a dreamer when their plan is absent of action. If it ever occurs to the dreamer that sustained action is necessary to get what they want, it only comes to them in a nightmare.

Dreaming is a wonderful gift, but when it’s the only one that you open, you miss a lot. Dreaming, without action, is just plain wishing. The question we rarely ask is: “How’s that working for you?”

Are you setting and forgetting or are you dreaming?

They are useful questions to ask. The useful answer is not an opinion; it’s fact based.

Are you willing to take a look at the plans, and even more importantly, are you ready to take action?

If not, plan on getting what you already have.

All the best,

John

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