Why You Can’t Plan Life is Garbage Advice.
There’s a Confession at the end
Have you ever heard this piece of advice, “You can’t plan life”? You probably have, but why? Why can’t I plan life? The thing is, you can plan life, I’d argue that waking up with a daily plan is one of the key parts of being successful. What about goal setting, isn’t that planning life?
Going with the flow is also terrible advice. I’d say that you should have at least 30% control in most situations that life throws at you.
Waking Up with a Plan makes Every Day Awesome.
If you can’t plan life, why don’t you plan today? Getting up each day with a definite purpose is what makes the day awesome. I went to boarding school and every day was planned.
We would have to wake up at 6:00 AM, be ready for assembly by 7:00 AM, and then the school would finish by 1:30 PM, after which we’d have sports and then studies followed by dinner, and then we’d have to polish our shoes and pack our bags before bedtime.
For a few years after boarding school, I meandered through life, saying that I’m young, let’s go with the flow, but you can’t go with the flow if you’re not on the right river.
If you plan your day, you’ve found your river, and purposeful action gives you the strength to swim effortlessly through the day.
Going with The Flow sounds Cool, but it Sucks.
There’s a portrayal in Hollywood of the girl/guy who goes with the flow, kind of like Summer in 500 Days of Summer, or Matthew McConaughey's character in Dazed and Confused. It’s dreamy, and it sounds cool, but it doesn’t work in the real world, it doesn’t work.
P.S.A: The stuff that society says or portrays as cool, is generally uncool and impractical, you do you, bro.
Planning your day is boring, but, it works, success is boring consistent action. You have to pick your sacrifice, and saying that you can’t plan life inadvertently says that you’ll be bouncing from one meaningless adventure to the next.
Successful people are boring, and the challenge of success lies in not getting bored, the reason being that success comes out of consistent action, you keep on doing one thing, over and over until you can’t get it wrong, I challenge you to think of just doing one activity for long enough until you can’t get it wrong, isn’t that thought daunting? Uncomfortable?
Planning Your Day makes You Uncomfortable.
A great day happens when you have a challenge that you can overcome, think of life as a video game, you hit your best state when you’re playing a level that’s slightly outside your ability but that you can handle.
Don’t go into scuba diving, please don’t quit your job to pursue your dreams or try to rekindle that lost love. Instead, try waking up early, or have a conversation with a stranger, not super hard, but challenging enough to give you a thrill.
That’s what I’m doing now, my daily challenges include writing 2 articles daily, getting up at 3:00 in the morning, taking a cold shower and trying to increase my net impact daily, which I’ll write about in a later article.
What’s your challenge daily challenge?
Why they tell you that you can’t Plan Life.
Boarding school gave me the ideology that having control matters. Waking up in the morning, say that you’re going to do this, and then the next task, and the next.
The people who tell you that you can’t plan life are the people that set goals and do nothing about them. You don’t have to set goals, but you have to do something.
I’m not the greatest writer here, but I plan on writing daily, which I’ve been doing, and it works, it kinda feels like I have a voice, I’m getting familiar with tools and idea generation etc.
One of my favourite writers on the platform Jessica Lynn, wrote every day for three months and she credits that to her success as a writer.
My perception of this is that action cures all, and here’s a confession…
My Confession.
For the last couple of months, I was a bit of a bum on Medium, I was writing one article a week and messing about, but I can’t do this anymore, I have to be consistent, so here’s what I plan to do:
- Write 1–3 articles every day, even on Saturdays and Sunday’s.
- Use tools to write better headlines, and edit better.
This is it, it’s my grand plan, let’s do these two things and I’ll give you guys some feedback in a few months.
Let’s get it.