WHAT IS YOUR BACKUP PLAN ?
How many times have you been asked, or even asked yourself the question: “What do you want from your life?”It’s something most people think about multiple times a year, and more often than not some variation of “I want to be happy and successful.”But how do we actually achieve it? And why is it so hard? Almost everybody has the same goal, yet it continues to evade us…I don’t think it has to be that way.
Thanks to some big and sudden life changes, I’ve had a lot more time to spend observing my own actions. This self reflection brought me to realize that some of the traits I attribute to my success are the same traits that have kept me from succeeding for long…especially one in particular. My commitment to always having a backup plan.
Acquiring any desire requires certain actions. You must be thinking “that’s obvious, I already knew that!” You’re probably right, and I bet you’ve went through what you believe are the necessary actions to unlock your true desires time and time again. If you just keep going something has to stick one day! At least that’s been the story I’ve told myself for years.
Yet despite all my efforts, I’ve always been left confused about why my concrete action plan wasn’t yielding results. The answer? My backup plan.
I always had a backup plan if my plan failed and in some cases a backup plan to my backup plan. Lots of people will be quick to call that smart! It means I think things through, right?Part of that is true. I do think things through, even though my wife will disagree. It’s not always a smart move though because sometimes thinking becomes a little too much.
After being an observer of my life I discovered I have always been fearful of failing which is why I always had backup plan to my plans all my life.
It sounds logical in theory but when you think about it, a backup plan is only necessary if you fail to execute your initial plan. By having a backup plan you’re inherently telling yourself there’s a good chance that Plan A is going to fail.
When I finally put this together I realized that my fear of things not working out was actually keeping me in state of acceptance to failure. Naturally as a result I found myself caught in a cycle of failing at plans or deliberately opting out of certain areas of life that I thought I might not succeed at.
This applies to professional or personal life, and when I think of the areas that I HAVE been successful in, I see now that it’s because I never had a backup plan.
The reason I succeeded as a personal trainer is because I never gave myself another option. My heart was in this industry. I worked hard and my passion for learning gave me an edge over other trainers. The end result a successful career.
Likewise, throughout my life one of my biggest goals was to have a beautiful family. I knew this would be a part of my future and I didn’t even think about being happy any other way. Today I am happily married with the wife of my dreams and two beautiful kids.
Moral of the story, most people are good at establishing their desires, but they’re even better at convincing themselves they can get by without them.
Your definition of success and happiness may be different than mine but I am certain you will feel the same overwhelming feeling of joy when you accomplish it, as I feel that joy everyday.
Stop focusing on backup plans. Pick a goal and draw an action plan to work on it. After that, don’t look back. You will succeed. If history has taught us something it’s that vision followed by persistent action results in success. After all if Gandhi had a backup plan, India wouldn’t have reached its independence…just one of thousands of examples from our past with the same lesson!
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