Not Everything Needs A Plan
I’ve always loved a plan. I plan where to eat out, my next hair-wash day, my imaginary wedding. And every year I spend weeks planning where we’ll go on holiday.
I read travel blogs and endless posts on Trip Advisor. I even devour Condé Nast cover to cover to get inspiration, feeling jealous that I can’t afford £965 a night to stay at Six Senses Bhutan, taking early morning hikes through chilli fields, eating luxurious dinners by candlelight and sipping refreshing pomegranate cosmos.
At the start of the first lockdown, I listened to a special episode on Elizabeth Day’s podcast, ‘How to Fail’. She was interviewing Mo Gawdat who spoke about the “equation for happiness”. The equation says that happiness is greater than, or equal to, your perception of the events in your life minus your expectation of how life should be.
It made me realise that by meticulously planning everything we do, from holidays, to meals out, weekend plans to birthday parties, we create huge expectations. And as such, we risk decreasing our chances of happiness. There’s a greater possibility that something won’t live up to our expectations.
One of the good things about lockdown is that it forced me to stop planning. Life was forced to stand still and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.
My boyfriend and I would wake up on a Saturday morning and decide what to do for the day. It might sound mad, but this way of living was foreign to me. Before lockdown, my weekends were planned weeks in advance. It didn’t matter what I felt like doing when I woke up. It had already been decided.
During lockdown we woke up one morning and decided to go on a walk along the Thames Path. We knew it would be a long walk, so we made a quick sandwich, took a packet of crisps and set off. The sun was shining, we ate sarnies on the move, and we had a very lovely day out. This left me feeling very happy…despite the mild indigestion!
If we were going on a weekend walk in a life before lockdown, things would have been very different. I would have mapped out our route a week in advance, found a pretty park to have a picnic and spent at least a fortnight stressing about what picnic items I could bake, cook and prep in advance. A last-minute sarnie and a bag of crisps was simply not an option.
The chances are the walking route would have felt overrated, the park busier than expected and the homemade quiche a bit soggy. And because I’d have set such high hopes for a day out walking, I’d have been left feeling disappointed and therefore unhappy.
Lockdown has helped me realise that whilst a plan can be a good thing, not every solitary thing in your life needs one.
For the fellow planners out there, I’m not suggesting you stop planning your holidays. Afterall, my friends would be devastated if ‘Jardine Tours’ ceased to exist and my boyfriend applauds that every holiday I plan feels like a honeymoon (he’s yet to get the hint). Nor would I recommend you stop planning for important things like presentations at work or client meetings.
Try and remember that there is a time and a place for a plan, but there’s no harm in finding a bit more spontaneity in the smaller things. That way we won’t set ourselves ambitious expectations in everything we do. Like our plans for next weekend or what takeout to get on Friday.
We can’t expect behaviour to change overnight. After all, apparently it takes 66 days (to be exact) for a new behaviour to become a habit. But every time we find ourselves outside of our comfort zone, we should remind ourselves that:
- It’s sometimes ok to not have a plan
- Simplifying our lives will help still our minds
- Lower expectations will enable a greater chance of happiness
- Less time planning our future will give us more time to enjoy the here and now
Originally published at lookingbothways.co.uk on February 7, 2021.
