autumn twilight

I’m one of those people who makes a lot of plans. And then never follows through on them. Lots of plans. I make plans about when I’m going to make plans, and what methodology I’m going to use to construct said plan.

Recent events have led me to realize something though. Having a plan isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There are other elements to success. Follow-through. Discipline (See previous post). Character, Emotional strength. But planning is important.

It’s a truism that plans never go the way they were planned. Something always goes wrong. We all know that we should build resiliency — one of the current most annoying catch-phrases of the corporate world — and flexibility into the plans we make, for whatever we’re planning. But what exactly does that mean? Even if you have the gift of prophecy, your visions almost never come to pass as you anticipated they would.

I think the solution is to plan all you want. Plan and execute those plans to the best of your ability, but to realize that the planned portion of your experience is only one piece of the puzzle. New experiences and pieces are going to be entering your sphere all the time, and it’s important to take them as they’re given to you, and work with what you have.

As a result, I realize that it’s not so much about planning for me anymore. I still make plans. I still try to carry them out, and sometimes I succeed. But the plan is not the first step. This is where I think many of us go wrong. We begin to plan with a specific idea of our goal. And it’s usually something pedestrian. Plan to lose weight. Plan to make more money. Plan to buy a house. Don’t get me wrong, these are good goals, they’re things that are part of the plans I make. But these plans are secondary to something more important. What is it you really want? What does losing weight mean? What does buying a house mean? What need in your life does making more money fulfill?

Don’t focus on the quotidian measures that our culture teaches are important. Find a measure of your life that means something to you. Find a mission statement for your life, or for this part of your life. What is it that will make you happy? For me it’s connection. For me it’s service. For me it’s self-actualization. It doesn’t need to be just one thing, but is often several connected things.

As a pagan, I refer to this as my Will. Capital W. It is what I believe I am here to do, or more importantly, what I should be doing now. Having an idea of the deeper values behind my plans lets me plan more realistically. And not just more realistically, but more meaningfully.

One of my current efforts is to lose weight. There are a lot of reasons for it. For one, I think my current weight is not healthy for me. It limits my flexibility and puts undue stress on my skeletal frame. It overtaxes my heart and makes my body inefficient. It makes me feel unattractive. It limits my freedom to express myself. So I have a lot of reasons to lose weight. Understanding many of those reasons gives me incentive. So I plan to lose weight.

How do I construct that plan in a way that gives meaning to my efforts, tangible results, and accomplishes my goal in a reasonable amount of time? By providing multiple methods of succeeding. In order to lose weight, I don’t need to do all of the things I want to do everyday, but if I do some of them I’ll succeed. So what am I doing?

I gave up soda-pop 9 days ago. I crave it every day, because I really enjoy it. I suspect I’ll eventually give in and have it, but as long as I’m strong most of the time I’m succeeding.

I try to do a little more physical exercise than I would normally do every day. I park a little further from home. I walk around the office instead of using Instant Messaging. I take a walk to the beach in the evening. I don’t have to do it every day, but each time I add a little, I’m helping myself.

I’m trying to make healthier choices for my diet. Some days this is very easy. Some days it’s very hard. But I used to eat poorly at almost every meal, so each good choice I make is an overall improvement.

I’m drinking a lot more water. Partially because I need liquid that I’m no longer absorbing from the excessive amounts of soda I was drinking (often 64oz+ a day). Partially because It’s gratifying when my urine is clear ;)

I’m trying to take better care of my body overall. I stretch and sit properly at work when I can. I take longer showers more frequently, and pay honor and diligence to my body. I connect with my body through touch and movement.

Notice that I don’t have a goal such as “lose 80 pounds in 6 months.”That would be awesome, but a goal like that makes it easy to fail. The point of planning is to make it easy to succeed. And so my goal is targeted not at some arbitrary deadline or number, but at the real issue. Why do I want to lose weight? To feel healthier and better about myself. Every time I do one of the things on my plan, I’m achieving that goal, and so I succeed several times each day. Would I like to lose 80 pounds? Of course, but the weight loss is secondary to solving the problems the weight causes.

This way I’m losing weight through improving my health and self-esteem. Not improving my health and self-esteem by losing weight. It may seem a semantic difference, but it is a meaningful one. It means that it will be more difficult, more challenging, to revert to old patterns after having succeeded. And for me, it’s making all the difference.