If you fail to plan then you plan to fail.
My friend Alex mentors a group of people starting up their own businesses. This week he told them, “You either Plan or you Gamble”.
This is an important message. I meet people all the time who have Big Dreams, and no plan, so nothing ever happens.
What is it that you’ve talked about doing? You’ve talked about it a lot, maybe even for years. (I’m sure your friends and family still listen raptly to you when you do. Yes indeed.)
For me, it’s been writing. For awhile I knew I could write a bestselling novel. I started one or two of them. Then I told everyone about how I was going to write important non-fiction books that took incomprehensible material and ‘translated’ it into language that everyone could understand. It would change people’s lives; I was committed to a life of service. I took writing courses, read writing books, joined groups where we supported each other to write better, even became a lifetime member of an online writing university. Years of talking about it and making halfhearted attempts. In recent years (maybe 3) I’ve been talking about blogging. I bought every book, tried it 2 or three times and each time it lapsed.
NO plan = NO success.
Someone challenged me to fish or cut bait; he said that I needed to either DO it, or shut up about it.
So, here I am blogging 5 days of of the week, working from a plan, and DOING it! I feel good about it, AND optimistic that the next thing I decide I want, I can have.
All I need is a plan. (And then of course, to follow the plan.)
Let me know how your plans are going….