Planning – Should we even plan?

Hello everyone!

So today, I want to talk about Planning.

You would say, why plan when life is so uncertain? Post pandemic, everyone has realised how some of the best plans can go down the drain in the face of huge uncertainties like the one brought on us by the Covid-19 pandemic. Unimaginable, unpredictable, unforeseeable circumstances became our reality. So why take the effort to plan?

Well, I will answer that. But first let’s understand what planning is.

As per Collins dictionary, “Planning is the process of deciding in detail how to do something before you actually start to do it.” As per Wikipedia, “Planning is the process of thinking regarding the activities required to achieve a desired goal”. The important word here is “Goal”.

The whole story starts with setting up of a Goal. Goal is a vision; it defines what we want to achieve at some point in future. It could be a personal goal or professional goal or an organisational goal. It gives us a direction to move ahead. Without goal, we would be headless bodies moving anywhere and everywhere without any sense of direction or milestone. In the end, we would realise that even after moving so much, we are still at the same place. We have not moved ahead at all. Thus, setting up a goal gives us a direction to move ahead in whatever we are doing. We can “go with the flow” and “take one day at a time”, but at the end there won’t be satisfaction. We would not get the happiness of achieving something that we dreamt of achieving. Yes, we should not pressure ourselves. But a healthy, positive, constructive push is always a good idea to move ahead in life.

But setting up a goal alone would not help at all. It will be similar to dreaming. It takes us nowhere. Goal needs to be supported by a plan to achieve it. I can set up a goal to land on moon someday. I can dream about it and leave it at that. Or I can plan!

I can plan for two ways of reaching moon. I can study more and become an astronaut. Alternatively, I can earn more and earmark a separate fund for moon travel. With commercial space tourism becoming reality, I can actually opt for Lunar Space Tourism and pay my way to the moon. And here comes the role of planning.

To make my dream a reality, I need to plan in detail my future course of action. Going back to academics could be difficult option. So, I can plan on hustling more to earn more income. I can cut down on my expenses and create a separate savings fund for my personal Lunar Mission. I need to research on what is the cost of such trip and the proposed time of such trip. Based on my research, I need to plan annual savings to achieve my target funds by the time the trip can be arranged.

The same is true for professional or organisational goals. There is always a typical friction between management and sales team when it comes to planning. Management likes to set up targets while sales team believes it impossible to plan for future when they don’t even know how the immediate next day will turn out to be. But, if they were not given any targets, they wouldn’t really grow well because there would be no aspiration, motivation and drive to excel. A strong vision and plan drives the organisation and each individual who is part of that organisation to excel and grow by leaps and bounds. A strong plan will definitely take the organisation beyond normal, routine, organic growth even if they are unable to achieve the desired goal.

There is a saying in Hindi “Aasman se gira, khajur pe atka” (falling from the sky and stuck on the date tree). If we give positive makeover to this saying, we can say “Aasman ki khwahish karo, sabse unche ped tak to pahuch hi jaoge” (desire for the sky and you shall reach the top of the tallest tree atleast).

So, good luck and all the best for “planning” your life.

Happy dreaming for the sky!