When You Don’t have a Plan?

I am someone who believes in planning, most of the time. Planning for my day-to-day activities, my ambitions, my dreams, my hobbies, and the list includes many more. After all, planning, goal setting, organizing, strategizing, predicting, and executing seem fascinating to me. And that overthinking regarding the choices I made in life along with the confusion that almost every one of us has, is not a big deal. It’s a part and parcel of adult life.

And I guess it’s important too. As planning helps me clarify my priorities and decide what is most important to me. Planning is what keeps me away from negative thoughts and gives me control over my life. I feel successful when I am able to execute any of my plans.

But, many a time I imagine what if I don’t have a plan for next? Sometimes, the next step, the next action, the next to-do seem so random to me. For instance, if you ask me, “Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?” I don’t have any specific answer to this.

“What are your future plans?” I find this question a lot scarier than the others.

I can’t have each day scripted in my head. Sometimes I feel that I am not confident enough to take a decision at that particular moment. On top of that, I am an introvert. I don’t like oversharing things or networking much with a lot of people.

Owing to the above two factors, how can you expect me to answer that question which I am not sure of?

Deciding on something and stating it to others scares me. What if I changed my mind? What if I lose passion for it after a while?

That’s the reason I am okay with not sharing my future plans with anybody else. Forget about the future, most of my plans for the present also never succeed. YES! My dear friends, if you are reading this, I am pointing towards the same travel plans that are always present in our planner book only. And I don’t know when will it be successfully executed? (Dear Universe, Please don’t let me down. I trust you.)

Embracing the Uncertainty

It reminds me of a story shared by one of my friends.

There was a woman named Sarah who had planned to take the train to attend a job interview in another city. She had spent weeks preparing for the interview. However, she discovered that all the trains to that route had been canceled due to a major storm. She could not even catch a flight or bus at the very last moment.

At first, Sarah was devastated. She had been looking forward to this interview for so long, and now it seemed like her chance was slipping away. But then she remembered something her grandmother had told her when she was a little girl: “Sometimes, the universe has a strange way of taking us in unexpected directions. And those directions can lead us to amazing things we never would have discovered otherwise.”

Those statements made Sarah feel a bit more optimistic. Sarah decided to take a walk until she could figure out something. As she wandered around, she stumbled upon a small bookstore. Sarah loved books, so she decided to go in and take a look.

As luck would have it, the owner of the bookstore was also the owner of the company Sarah had been planning to interview for. They struck up a conversation, and before long, Sarah found herself telling the owner all about her experiences and qualifications. Impressed, the owner offered her a job on the spot!

Sarah was stunned. She had never expected to find a job like this, and certainly not in such an unexpected way. But she realized that if the trains hadn’t been canceled, she would never have stumbled upon that bookstore and made such a great connection.

From that day onwards, Sarah’s belief in the universe continued to grow.

It’s not always possible to plan things and then take action. It is rightly said that life happens to you when you are busy planning other things. Things don’t work always according to our plans. But those unplanned events, those sense of randomness gives us an opportunity to learn, adapt, change direction, observe, and evolve in many ways.

Sometimes what you plan doesn’t happen and then you get disheartened. But you don’t need to. This story taught me to accept opportunities with open arms and embrace the randomness of our daily lives.

The benefits of Spontaneity

What if you have to lead an unplanned life forever? That might make you stronger because you have to figure out each and every little step one by one only by yourself. No one will be there to spoon-feed you. You will meet the real you. It might be possible that the result that will come is different from what you expected. But that’s how you will work on it. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Unless you are exploring and learning, it’s fine.

When you are dealing with something unplanned or unpredictable, even a small achievement then feels a lot more countable. My most-read article was not a planned one, it was a spontaneous one that I wrote when I was extremely happy thinking about something. (A big big thanks to that person because of whom I wrote that article). Perhaps on that day, I was functioning at my peak level of excitement. And now even after writing this 113th post on this blog, no article has come closer to that one in terms of viewership.

I guess that’s the beauty of being spontaneous. On the other hand, when I plan a lot over keyword research, keyword mapping, and many more such things when it comes to blogging, I feel many days pass but I am not able to produce relevant content. That’s the disadvantage of planning too much.

Moreover, planning too much can distract you from many opportunities. While being spontaneous has given me many chances to improve, to fall and rise, to do experiments, and to explore a lot; overplanning has always made me anxious.

What do I do when I don’t have any plans?

• Going with the flow.
• Trusting in God’s plan.
• Taking a pause and slowing down.
• Self-Examination.

CONCLUSION

It’s okay if things don’t work according to your plans. Who knows if those spontaneous decisions could be a game-changer in your life?

While plans are good to have for your life, you must realize that things change. Sometimes a new plan arises to replace the old one and set you on a greater path. It’s okay to follow your heart instead and do what you want to do. Sometimes breaking that monotony in life and getting out of your comfort zone can give you that sense of achievement that cannot be obtained from anything else.

It’s okay if we don’t know what we have to do, the answer lies in experimenting and doing things fearlessly.