Do you get bogged in the details when you’re planning? Big goals require planning but nth degree detail can be cause for procrastination and demotivating. Plans are, at best, a guess based on past performance (whether yours or somebody else’s) and work best when there’s room for adjustment.

Plans are chunking the big goal into smaller steps. I get caught here as I have a tendency to plan every last minute and every last dollar with no room to move – a guaranteed recipe for disaster when real life shows up. The theory is right but when my head gets in the way theory doesn’t work. This is when I’m looking for certainty, covering every base and in the meantime progress has stopped before it’s even started.

As I write I can see that what I need is to forget the detail of the smaller steps.

1.       A mud map, a rough draft

2.       Pick one area

3.       Start

4.       Learn along the way

5.       Adjust course – yes, it may blow out the timetable, or it may be the biggest push yet to make it.

6.       Stay focused

7.       Find mentors to learn from and

8.       Others to be accountable to

9.       Keep moving.

The detail causes confusion, it’s like clutter; when there’s so much stuff in the way you can’t see the forest for the trees.

Having said that, I make a big mess once I start! I am in, boots and all, and stuff is everywhere! Creating any outcome is a learning journey from a space where you don’t actually know what you need to know until you’ve started. With an end goal in mind and several paths to getting there, planning detail needs to be loose and flexible.

With a focus on the end result, some planning is necessary. Be prepared though for life’s little surprises to derail that plan. These are merely detour signs, a call to adjust the plans to keep moving towards that final destination.

Are your plans not going to plan? Contact me to clear the way and get moving again.