Plans are useless but planning is indispensable
Making a plan
Most of the time you and I sometimes find each other writing a list of stuff we need to get done by the end of the day just to realize that we never really did anything on the list but rather the entire opposite.
It was President Dwight D. Eisenhower who said, “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable” the implication is that even a well-made plan with the best intentions often ends up not being worth the paper it was written on.
When a plan contradicts the real world, the real world always wins. Knowing that even the best plan will almost certainly fail to account for at least some of the challenges reality poses, so why do we plan?
The value of planning
The value of a plan lies in the act and effort of planning: in doing so, you gain understanding about yourself, your project’s goals and objectives, and the abilities of you have.
Rather its more about the discipline you have that makes the planning more effective. The ability to write something down and actually finish what's written on it by the end of the day is what is so powerful.
Planning encourages situational awareness through learning and discussing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and a flexible strategy that can tie them all together.
A good plan establishes a vision, with goals and supporting objectives, and provides context and directionality so the team can move forward and be supported without being locked in.
Break your goal down
It’s also best to avoid thinking too vaguely about a vision. People occasionally think about goals in broad terms in order to avoid failure, but when we do this, we guarantee that we achieve the exact opposite.
Break your goal down to small steps you can take. Let's say I’d like to become a New York's best-selling author, I can't just through that in the air and hope for the best.
To become a New York’s best-selling author, I must write a book first and break down my first book into chapters then into paragraphs and then into sentences, if this book flops I can write another book and keep perfecting my writing until one day I achieve my goal.
Just wanting to put in the effort and saying that you will do so is insufficient. We need to truly put out the effort. We achieve our goals via action, not simply thought. We will never succeed in our goals if we continually put things off.
