“Average people have wishes, confident people have plans” -Anonymous
In many fields, planning out answers and solutions are critical. If you were to build a skyscraper, many right answers would be required to avoid catastrophe. If you were diagnosed with a disease or needed surgery, I’m pretty certain you’d be looking for solutions and correct answers from your doctor and the team. Similarly, if you boarded an airplane you’d be hoping the designers accounted for what was right based on scientific principles. In planning all these endeavors, the professionals would still need their plans to be able to adapt on the fly for contingencies. A common thread in these examples is both the short term nature of and the direct and catastrophic results failure would bring.
The longer the term of the endeavor and the less direct and short term the results, the more planning cannot be based upon solutions and right answers. Does that make planning less valuable? Absolutely not. Take planning your career and life’s work. How about financial goals, especially long term? Another example would be having children, schooling, and certainly where and what kind of home to reside in. What about a plan for your own personal development? This could capture reading, writing, teaching, speaking, and more.
In these cases, planning is absolutely critical. If you doubt that, go ahead and study the lives of those who’ve lived a life of great impact. Do you think they simply “winged it?” No way.
Have a mindset that planning in these areas is about process. The process of continual improvement and adjustment. The plan sets up the foundation and provides a base roadmap. It is utilized often when sizing up various pros and cons of different options being considered that would impact the plan. If more people understand this reality, for example, in the area of personal financial planning, they would be running towards getting one. They’d have put it in place, at least the first draft, like yesterday. So, why don’t they do that?
Well unfortunately, our society, our advertising, and even many of our “financial advisors” have you believing that the key to your financial challenges is in buying a product, in finding a solution or an answer. They want you to believe that it’s quick, easy, and just one click away. Don’t fall for this. Achievement, success, goal-accomplishment, purpose are all attainable, but they require ongoing effort, discipline, and a planning process. It’s a journey, not a destination.
“A good financial plan is a roadmap that shows us exactly how the choices we make today will affect our future” –Alexa Von Tobel
