To succeed: Throw away your perfect plans, and do these instead.

For any plan to work, you must be ready to work the plan.

I know it’s weird. This is coming from a guy who always likes writing down plans, who is goal-oriented, and intently focused on creating plans before taking action. You need to read to the end for you to understand why I wrote this headline.

I have found out that the need to come up with a perfect plan has prevented many people from starting on their most important goals. They figure that to accomplish their plans, they need a detailed, written plan. A plan that will take them from point A to point Z until they achieve their vision. They expect to know how things will play out with their plans, even before starting. The truth is, that is not how real life works. There are many uncertainties, many unknowns in life’s journey, and you cannot know every detail from day one when you only have your plans written on a piece of paper.

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” — Mike Tyson

It’s all good to have plans, but when we wait for too long to figure out everything, we often freeze, pause, and even get stuck if care is not taken, thereby making it difficult to act on the plans. It’s great to have plans, but if plans guaranteed success, we would all be successful.

If plans alone are what you need to achieve your goals, then all you need to run a successful business is to have a well-written business plan.

If plan alone can make you an author, then all you need is maybe a title of a book with a table of content.

If plan alone can jump start your career, then you do not need to have a qualification, write a resume, or apply for jobs.

To actually succeed with your goals, much more than plans, you should have the following:

1. Pick an idea: The starting point of any great feat is an idea. Every business begins with an idea from someone. Every book that was ever written was an idea in the mind of the author. Every movie that you are every going watch was once an idea before the idea was turned into a play that you can watch. Once you have an idea about what you want to achieve, you should determine whether or not the idea is worth pursuing.

2. Move with passion: If indeed, you found out that the idea is worth your while, you will need a passion for moving forward. Passion is what will drive you towards working on the idea, not a plan. For example, if you do not have a passion for writing, a plan will get you nowhere. It is your passion for writing that will motivate you to come up with topics, open your computer and start creating your work for the world to see and read.

3. Practice to become better: To continue to do well and become better at what you do, you need practice. Practice helps you to test the waters and ascertain whether or not the idea will work. Through practice, you will know what works and what does not, you will be able to establish strategies that make it easier for you to reinforce those that work while eliminating those that don’t. A plan to become a motivational speaker will not get you anywhere if you don’t back it up with some real-life practice of speaking in front of some audience.

4. Keep your focus: When starting out, things may not work immediately the way you desired. You may publish a story on medium and found out that you had only ten views with a mediocre clap. If you let your passion kick in, you will not be deterred by the number of views. If you keep the practice of writing regularly, you will be able to build your audience, and gradually, ten views will become a hundred views, and a hundred become a thousand. If you focus on the end goal, maybe for you, it is to share stories that will encourage and motivate people, you will be able to become an expert in the field, and naturally, attract more people to read your work.

It is a good thing to have plans whenever we want to set out to achieve something, but do not let the desire to create a perfect plan to prevent you from taking action. If you have an idea, you should make your passion for the idea, motivate you to move forward, even when you don’t have the perfect plan. If you keep practicing, you will learn and become better at what you do, and ultimately, you will be able to achieve success.

For any plan to work, you must be ready to work the plan. And to do that, you must have a passion for the idea, practice to become better, and focus intently on it, until you achieve your goals.