It’s All in the Plan…

Scheduling and all the drama it brings up is a topic that comes up a lot in my coaching. I coach other coaches on their schedules… they coach me on mine and we all coach our clients on theirs.

That’s a lot of coaching for something that’s a tool you design to serve you and help you reach your goals.

3 ways your plan is messing with your mind

1. When you look at your plan… you don’t want to follow through.

As soon as you plan it… you don’t want it. You’re not alone. Pretty much everything sounds like a great idea a week before you have to actually do it. One thing you can bet your dual widescreen monitors on – is you won’t want to follow through on your plan. Especially, if what’s on the calendar for today is a little bit hard or requires getting serious and shutting off your ‘Zon playlist and focusing. It happens to all of us. That’s the voice of Mid-Brain. It’s looking for the easiest, safest thing it can find. Sticking to your new year’s resolution pretty much ain’t going to be it. So get smart y’all. Plan in a way that keeps Mid-Brain from crawling off the couch and noticing what you’re doing. Get it? If you have a game plan for getting those emails under control, add a little something to the chore… do it while listening to a great playlist. If the deal is skipping the donuts on the party table, then make sure you have a delicious alternative planned. If you’re going to read 180 mind-numbing pages on how to upgrade your ticketing system, use the Pomodoro method so your brain knows you’ll be getting regular breaks.

2. Making appointments with your own self is creeping you out.

Face it. You don’t treat you like you should, man. You won’t give yourself the time of day. Not surprising dude. We’ve got 12 years of grade school making sure that all our time is planned for someone else, right? Appointments on the calendar are all about not missing doctor visits, our driver’s test, the awesome three-day concert in the Poconos… what? That wasn’t on your calendar? The point is, there is really only one person on the planet who gives two cents for your calendar and that’s you. So make sure you’re putting your own stuff on there first. Yes. First. Give yourself credit. You’re not going to forget to go to work if you prioritize your morning run over everything else. Do you want to be home for dinner with the kids? Put it on the calendar. When they call you – and they will – and ask if you can show up for a 5:30 meeting at the last minute train yourself to answer as if that appointment was with (insert someone way important here). If you inserted your own name, you get a big ol‘ slap on the back. Good job there, dude.

3. Your schedule is packed tighter than your senior year jeans or it’s so wide open that you haven’t bothered to hang up a calendar since 2017.

Some people fill up their plan with so many “Must Do’s” that they have to sleep with their clothes on because they only have time to dress once a week. These folks – and I’m one- value productivity and spend hours shuffling their plans around as they fail to live up to their own fun-house distortion of what they think they need to do. If that’s you, I gotta thank you for finding time to read this. Think about it: if you’re not hitting your targets, then all that overload isn’t accomplishing anything. An overstuffed schedule doesn’t work. Yeah, I get it. There was that one magic day when you actually did all that stuff. That day is over. Take a deep breath. Your life is not a to-do list. Your life is a work of balance and creativity that celebrates the unique gift that is you in the world. Please, don’t miss it. It’s the party of the century. Make sure you have unstructured time and time to shower. It’s OK. And when you plan something, plan a result and walk out of that time with something to show for it.

I lost some of you there, didn’t I? You’ve never accidentally forgotten to allow time for lunch because you steadfastly refuse to plan anything. If it’s not a doctor’s appointment or a tax audit, it’s not on your calendar and it never will be. How’s that workin’ for you? Are you losing sight of all the things you thought you might want to do or be someday? A schedule is not a prison…unless you’re the person in the above paragraph – and for sure, That isn’t you. True dat. You don’t want to lose your sense of freedom and spontaneity right? Tell me, when’s the last thing you just left work mid-day and drove to the Grand Canyon to see the sunset? Right. If you wanted to be that spontaneous, you’d have to plan it. See what I did there? You gotta wonder if the reason you don’t want to put stuff on that pretty day planner is a fear of failure, the gut-deep belief that you’ll let yourself down. Cut that out! If this is you, put one little thing on the calendar for tomorrow and do it. Psst. It can be a fun thing. It can be a simple thing. It can be dancing in the kitchen for 10 minutes or watching football on Monday night. The point is you gotta be able to count on yourself. The only way to do that is to do that. So, do that.

Sure. So how come with all that, we still fail and beat ourselves up and want to quit?

Next week, how to be a grown-up.

Nah. I’ve no clue how to do that. But I do know that I need to plan today for the tomorrow I want to have, and I have to plan just a bit smarter than I did yesterday. And now? You know it too.

Next week… how to love failures and look forward to your next mistake.

See you then.