I saw something interesting this week.
I’m going back to work, and I was preparing myself mentally for the transition. I was prepping my agenda planner (Wow! Remember those? Haven’t used mine since March), and as I turned the page to the first week of November, I realized that this was the same week that I was scheduled to attend the company retreat of my old job.
I think it’s telling that I didn’t feel upset or disappointed. Perhaps it’s because I’m aware that everyone else is going through the same thing during the COVID-19 pandemic. That may be part of it, but I think the real reason is because I really didn’t want to go.
As an administrative professional, it would have been my responsibility to plan the logistics of the retreat; the fact that it was no longer my responsibility was a huge relief to me, so much so that I wrote in my gratitude journal with a copious amount of exclamation marks.
The point is: I had no idea where I would be career-wise one year ago. I assumed I’d be where I already was, just making a little bit more money and taking on a lot a bit more responsibility.
I fashioned my goals and systems in anticipation of this reality, but when it didn’t come to fruition…I was actually alright. In fact, as perverse as it may sound, I actually feel like I’m in better standing now than I was 12 months ago. If that’s not a sign I should’ve been reevaluating what I was doing with my life, I don’t know what is.
I, like many planning and organizing-obsessed people, went into 2020 complete with the intention that I would be able to map out my path and follow it with disciplined rigour.
I invested in a wall calendar, bought an inexpensive 2020 planner and got to work populating the pages with anything and everything I expected to come out of 2020. One of which being the annual corporate retreat, set for early November.
It almost feels like I jinxed myself by trying to structure my year like a predictable schedule. Seeing the note for the now-cancelled retreat from my now ex-employer taught me avaluable lesson: no matter how hard or how earnestly we attempt to plan, life always has a funny, elegant way of throwing a monkey wrench into things and throwing us off-kilter.
“Life is What Happens To You While You’re Busy Making Other Plans.”
John Lennon
When I was a teenager, I was really into Yu-Gi-Oh!, both the card game and the anime. In fact, it was my love of the show that informed and reinforced my vigour for the card game that I would play with my brothers and kids around the neighbourhood.
I became obsessed with planning out the “ultimate deck”, a collection of cards that would make me as unstoppable as Yugi with Exodia or Joey with the Red-Eyes Black Dragon. I would scour the internet, searching for the most powerful, valuable cards and writing down my ideal list to construct the ultimate deck. At the time it seemed so easy: all I had to do was procure all the cards on my wish list and I would be the most powerful, formidable card player in all of Ontario.
There were just two problems. One: Yugi on the show is a dirty cheater; a lot of the effects of cards were not accurately indicative of how they were to be used in IRL tournament play.
Two—and most importantly—a lot of these powerful cards were highly coveted for a reason. Many were extremely rare finds that commanded a hefty fee to add to one’s repertoire, something I couldn’t even dream of entertaining with my minimum-wage Sobeys job at the time. The wish list would have to remain just that—a wish.
Looping back to the point of this post: it’s okay to attempt to plan for potential occurrences or scenarios that could happen in your life. But it is foolhardy to try to plan without taking into consideration that plans change. Benchmarks can be pushed back, concerts can be postponed, weddings can be delayed. Rather than react negatively to these circumstances that are beyond our control, it’s important to be proactive and follow these three steps.
Roll with the Punches
You might step in it. It might hit the fan. Whatever bad or unexpected misfortune may befall you, it’s important to pick yourself up again after you get knocked down (aka the “Tubthumping” principle).
Re-evaluate Goals in the Short Term
Sometimes you plan your goals with the very best of intentions, but they’re just not viable down the line. For example, you may be determined to save your money to go on a big trip in June. Well…you could lose your job, or a global pandemic could uproot the travel industry and make it impossible to go on that destination vacation. Check in every 3-6 months to see if the parameters of your goal have changed, and if so, adjust accordingly.
Start from Zero
This is an extreme option, but sometimes the way we plan is fundamentally flawed and causes us to get in the way of accomplishing our goals. When this is the case, it might be wise to abandon your current strategy entirely and start from scratch.
Example: suppose you’re attempting to invest and save for retirement while at the same time paying down consumer debt, but the debt payments are so small that you can’t keep up with the interest charges and the debt balloons exponentially out of control.
In this situation, it may be best to put a pause on investments or to even dip into savings in order to get the debt back to a manageable size. It may mean starting over with one’s saving goals, but in the end, it’s still a better solution than to drip-drop funds into a bucket that has a massive hole.
I had the HAIRY AUDACIOUS goal to sell one of my short stories to a publication in 2020, but it looks like that won’t be in the cards for this year (UPDATE: After writing this post, my short story WAS accepted!!). I’ve been rejected several times, so perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate how I’ve marketed my stories. I may either a) re-write some of the short stories from the ground up, or b) create a novella that has several stories within the same universe. Whatever I decide, I can make that choice with the insight that my previous efforts were not yielding desirable results, and I adjusted my strategy accordingly.
Do you have any other suggestions on how to mitigate the fallout of the best laid plans? How did you course-correct on your goals and aspirations in 2020? Let me know in the comments below!