Success Isn't Spontaneous And It Won't Happen Overnight: Why You Need To Make Plans

So often, I hear and read of people talking about success, planning and goal setting. But honestly, this rhetoric can almost seem like a broken record. Strangely enough, every time those thoughts creep into my head, life can feel like it is unraveling before my eyes.

Once this happens, I quickly revert to listening and reading about that broken record of planning and achieving success. Immersing myself in these principles tends to bring me back to sanity and calms my mind to a point where it can once again play on the offense throughout this unrelenting game of life.

Life is not easy; discipline is difficult to come by and is a quintessential facet of achieving success. The harsh reality is that every second is an opportunity to lose focus of your goals and desires. Every second can determine which type of life you create for yourself, your family and your acquaintances. How will your story play out?

Luckily, the tools of planning and goal setting are simply just that: tools. Tools that enable you to retain a laser-like focus regarding where you want to end up in life, where you are today and how to navigate the in-between. These tools, although extremely basic and simple, can leave impacts of massive proportions. Goal setting is a part of planning and planning is the tool that enables normal people to do extraordinary things.

The crazy thing about all of this hype is that planning is so easy and requires a minimal amount of determination to complete. It does not have to take anything more than mere minutes out of your day to complete. Every person has minutes to spare to dedicate to envisioning the future, and if you do not have that time, you must have not realized that there are 24 hours, 1,440 minutes, or 86,400 seconds in a day.

If you care enough, you can certainly direct some of that time to planning. There are no excuses if you want success badly enough.

By definition, a plan is a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something. In reality, a plan is much more than its definition and should include with the following elements:

Emotion

A great plan has a body and soul of its own. A plan does not contain the roller coaster of emotions that fill our day-to-day lives, but rather, it contains only the emotion with which the plan was written — the emotion that embodies the blood, sweat and tears that you are willing to endure in order to achieve your goals. Every person has wildly different reasons for setting certain goals and everyone’s tone will be vastly different.

The state with which you write your plan is unique to you and perfectly encapsulates your identity at the time it was written.  You can later utilize this gut-wrenching emotion to inspire yourself when times get harder and you must dig deeper to come out on top and achieve your goals.

Clarity

A plan without clarity is like swimming through muddy water at night in a swamp. How can you ever know where you are going, what you will run encounter or how far you are from where you need to be if the path is not clear?

A clear understanding of where you want to go and how you will get there can enable you to pick apart the plan to its core and understand how to get on the path you need to be on in order to make effective progress toward your goals. The more detailed and the more specific the plan, the more clear and effective it will become.

Purpose

Purpose is a building block of every plan. The purpose is the root cause that enables someone to realize the why factor and develop the method behind the madness. I have learned that many of the people who doubt and negatively reinforce people who think big and dream big are primarily missing their purposes as humans.

I am not talking about a purpose or duty to take care of family or loved ones, but rather, someone’s true purpose at its root essence: the actual value that they bring to society and humanity as a whole. It is much easier to put down someone else in order to make yourself look better than it is to relentlessly grind until you reach your goals. Regardless, this purpose will reinforce your plan and make it harder to deviate from your goals because you can directly connect what you are doing to why you are doing it.

Concentration

Everything in our world emits some form of energy. With such an abundance of positive and negative energy on our planet, it is extremely easy to get off track from your goals by focusing on the wrong thoughts. We embody our environments as a result of their influences on us. The key to staying focused and on track in achieving your goals is to be able to rid yourself of the negative influences in your environment.

A detailed plan will enable you to channel your energy into places that are positive progressions toward your goals while focusing that positive energy on what you want to achieve.  Once you channel your energy, you will become more nimble and effective at problem solving because you will devote more of your body and mind to accomplishing your goals.

So, plan thoughtfully and act! Not because others tell you to do so, but because you want to. Plan because you want to spur change in your life and care about seeing results.

Every person views success differently and has different goals and aspirations. Nothing happens overnight and in many cases, if something does it is too good to be true or will not last long-term (otherwise everyone would be doing it... right?).  At the most fundamental level, your determination and planning are your keys to whatever life you want to live.  Make it worthwhile!

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