How You Fail Before Starting.
Planning might just be killing your ideas.
"I need to plan my goals," were the thoughts that ran through my mind for the 101st time. Scrolling through my instagram page, I murmured "Adrian is doing so well here," while I twist my mouth. Stopping for a bit I mused "oh wow, he’s gotten up to 5,000 followers," I scrolled quickly and almost immediately went back to Whatsapp. I scrolled through all the status updates and clicked on Don. I knew I was in for some more information on his status but I got something else that made me think in a different perspective. His update read: "I think I’ve encouraged you enough, what have you done?." The question both inspired me and made me feel guilty. I’ve been following Don for months now and was even part of his paid community but I didn’t see the progress I wanted to see. It got me really thinking about what really was wrong. Immediately I put off my data, carelessly threw the phone on my table and allowed my hands to rake through my hair as I let out a sigh.
If you are like me who is an infovore (people who like to consume information), you probably fall in the category of finding it difficult to get things done. We live in a world with so many activities, but day by day productivity is lessened. It’s amazing how people have a lot they want, they wish for and even have sometimes but still don’t get the most of it. I can bet you had plans for the year, but let’s be honest you haven’t gotten everything done yet, probably or nothing at all.
Here’s why, because you’ve 'romanticized' it since the first day you thought about it. That’s how we fail before starting. We failed before we started because we did nothing about it except daydream and kill it with planning. We make a grand plan for it, trying to perfect the idea, while imagining how our lives will be when we are busy at our goals but we don’t move an inch really.
Planning isn’t the way your goals happen, it’s only a small fraction, imagining don’t get your goals done and romanticising certainly doesn’t! What gets it done is simply doing.
When we think too much about a plan, our brain falls in love with the plan or idea and instead of pushing us to do it, it turns the plan into day dreams that we love to imagine but become lazy to do. The human psyche does not like stress, so the brain would rather feed you with the thought of it than remind you of the work of it. Here’s the thing, when the idea comes to you, you are excited about it. You probably stumbled on the idea when reading or going through something, and you pen it and for a while expand it in your mind and you draw a draft plan and keep saying "I will add this and that" and you keep expanding it in your head, mind you, you’ve done nothing about it actually and you move on to wondering what if something goes wrong, what will you do? You’ve already identified a problem for something you’ve not started.
"Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me" -Carl Sandburg.
What happens to just doing it? Chances are someone will get interested, you will get a nice feedback; all these are a tip of the iceberg. The real good thing is that you did it. You started, you made the kill, you won, you didn’t wait to plan for the world, nor did you let the imposter syndrome get to you, you simply started unsure of what’s ahead or what problems you would face, neither did you plan for a year. You just started and your name was added to the list of world history makers.
People only create time for those who do, those who talk are underrated. People who make history start with doing.
I do not underestimate planning, no, but when you dwell so much on your ideas or plans, waiting to be seen or waiting for perfect timing or not doing little things everyday to add up for it, we already fail before starting because we’ll stay there till we just start. The moment an idea comes to mind it already starts failing because it’s still in our minds and the longer we wait, we should remember someone else is probably already doing it or someone else might start doing it and the world is efficient, it’s going so fast. Until we do it, that idea is failing, we make it great by doing.
You should pull out that plan again, and like Nike 'Just do it.’ -Me.
