Tag: planning

Ditch the Plan

Introduction

This is a personal story originating from my daily journaling, so bear with me. I retired about a year and a half ago with aspirations of getting back into playing guitar again, doing my yoga and meditation practices, fixing up my house, volunteering at a charity, working on my diet, and writing a book, just to name a few things I hoped to accomplish. I eventually got to the point where I literally scheduled every hour of the day from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. to fit all these things and more into each day. Inevitably, things would come up, and I would be late getting to the scheduled task for something, or I would skip it completely. The whole thing turned out to be nothing but a disappointment due to not achieving the things on my calendar, and on top of that, it made my life pretty boring.

This whole planning process for every minute of my life had been going on for a long time. When I was working, my primary role was being an IT Project Manager for various companies. I guess being a project manager for so long actually became who I was to a large degree, thus the planning affliction.

Revelation

I woke up one morning very early and told myself to let it all go. You know those pep talks you give yourself in an attempt to deal with this week’s self-imposed suffering, maybe even writing them down in a journal. I thought it would be best to try from time to time to drop the expectations. I wasn’t thinking that I didn’t need to do anything. I still realized I needed to deal with the important things, such as emergencies, appointments, cooking, cleaning, and fixing things, etc., but also to make time for things I enjoyed, which always seemed to come after everything else. I was just attempting a reset to alleviate the pressure of always needing to be productive, always achieving something.

So, with a decision not to be ruled by a calendar, I looked at my numerous goals and did a radical thing, which was to remove the dates. I deleted the start and end dates while keeping the goals, which I felt were still worthwhile. Now, understand the goals still had a priority column, so it wasn’t complete chaos, but it also took the pressure off looking at those dates and thinking Oh, you missed that one or You haven’t achieved this or that. I guess you come to a realization that you only have so much time and so much energy, and some of the things you are looking to do take significant amounts of time to make progress, and some, like playing guitar again, end up permanently on your agenda. So my desire to write a book, learn Spanish, and take up playing guitar again, along with everything else, got to be too much, so I shelved learning Spanish so I could focus on music and writing.

This all boils down to a few overarching guidelines when it comes to goal setting and how it affects what you do each day:

  1. Deal with the basics, those things you must do for your health, family, residence, etc. These are the basics that pretty much everyone needs to deal with. You know, go to the dentist, doctor, do your grocery shopping, pay the bills, do car maintenance, and make sure your family is taken care of. The cautionary tale here is that not all of these things need to be done now, so don’t let this list of the basics monopolize all your time. Here is a stupid example: I had some new decking put in a few years ago, replacing what was there, and it took me 5 years to stain it. Seems kind of negligent, but I was working then, and I could have outsourced it, but chose to just do it later.
  2. This is the most important thing that I decided needed to be the primary influence on how I spend my time, and that is to do the things you enjoy. If you let dealing with the basics consume all your time, or you’re working on goals that really don’t excite you, then you need to ask yourself if you are enjoying what you are doing or just trying to check off something on a task list that supports a goal that doesn’t really enrich your life.
  3. Simplify your life. To make time for doing the things you enjoy, you need to stop doing things that you think should be done, but are not really that important. We have all heard of minimalism, and there is some value in removing things and obligations from your life so you can focus on the things you really enjoy. This is really about the ruthless pursuit of removing material things and obligations that you feel compelled to do from your life. Everything you buy needs a place to occupy in your home, and must be maintained to some degree, then possibly replaced when it is no longer functional. You think you might like a vacation home on a lake so you can go fishing, but when you buy the home, you spend your time fixing up the house, maintaining boats and docks, landscaping, furnishing the home, paying utilities and property taxes, and pretty soon you realize you don’t have any time to go fishing. Instead, renting a cottage for a week, renting a boat, or even buying a boat is a lot less costly and requires less maintenance than owning a piece of property.
  4. Don’t spend your time trying to impress anyone. If you are doing something to impress someone instead of because you enjoy it, then drop it. To have the time to do the things you really enjoy that bring meaning to your life, there needs to be a ruthless culling of the things that, in the scheme of things, don’t enhance your life. Ask yourself, why am I doing things to impress other people? Maybe it’s all about your ego and seeking validation from others. Most of the time, you find that they really don’t care because they have their own problems and their own need for validation.

Conclusion

The Buddha taught us that life is impermanent and that things are impermanent. We will get old and die, regardless of what the tech oligarchs think. Those things that we have will no longer be ours when we are gone. Most of the societies in this world want their people to be productive, to earn, and consume more, for what is more important than economic growth and prosperity? Don’t buy into this myth that has been created, or you will never be free to pursue the things you enjoy. These things will become goals for the future, instead of what you could be doing in the present.

So realizing that what I was doing was at least partially aligned with a need to be productive over pursuing what really mattered to me, became the revelation. I also realized that I would need to keep prioritizing my happiness in the present moment and not worrying about how much was accomplished. Do that thing that you enjoy, and you will find that you will accomplish more in the long run, and as you achieve what you set out to, you will allow a little joy into this life.

I’ll wrap this up with a quote from Lao Tzu:

A serene forest scene with lush green trees and a tranquil pathway, featuring a quote by Lao Tzu that reads, 'Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.'

Namaste

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Clinging to the Past

How can you experience the possibility of living an extraordinary life if you continue to cling to the past, or maybe more accurately relive the past over and over?

Well, you can’t!

So there must be a reason you repeat the same pattern of existence day after day. Maybe it is a fear you won’t achieve your financial goals without clinging to the life you have now. Do you think that after all these years you couldn’t possibly do any better financially unless you keep your shitty job. How many more hours, days, months, and years will you spend waiting? Your past has become your present and your present has become your future.

Do you have enough faith in yourself to do what you want to do, not what you feel is safe or reasonable?

Deep inside you realize that what you want from this life is just a decision away. The realization that each day is precious and that the future is what you make of it should be enough of a reason to stop living in this self-imposed prison. You spent most of your life living and doing for others, and now it is time to do something for yourself. Take back control of your life. Get off the fucking hamster wheel and put the past in the rearview mirror.

Planning Over Action

You don’t need another fucking plan, for Christ’s sake that’s all you do is create plans. Your new and better life only becomes available by taking action in the present moment. Fuck the plan, act!

Planning is great but only to a certain degree. When it gets to the point that 90% of your time is spent planning your future instead of acting to make it happen, you are in trouble. So you have a great idea for starting a business and you have identified the skills you will need and made a plan to acquire those skills. That’s great, now it is time to learn those new skills and execute your plan. If you wait to make sure you have planned out every little task and you have researched yourself into a coma then that opportunity may just slip away. I am personally guilty of this one. I plan out goals and reset them over and over instead of doing the things to achieve them. Guilty as charged!

You become so mired in the planning and second-guessing yourself that you aren’t accomplishing anything. You need a goal and a plan to achieve that goal, but as you probably have experienced nothing seems to go exactly as planned. There is a quote out there and I’m not sure who to attribute it to, but it makes my point.

If The Plan Doesn’t Work, Change The Plan, Not The Goal

Your plans will change as you learn more about what you are seeking but don’t give up on your goal. Your goal is created in your imagination expressing a desire or a dream. The point here is to not get into an infinite loop of planning without taking action. Revisit your plan periodically, but make sure most of your effort is not spent planning. If you like ratios maybe Action to Planning should be 10:1.

Desiring Certainty

It’s not like you don’t have any interests outside of your job as is the case with some people. You know exactly what you want to do, which is what makes not doing it such a tragedy. No, you my friend won’t take this leap of faith because you need certainty. There is no certainty in this world. You could be fired tomorrow, fall prey to a disease, or be hit by the proverbial bus. If you truly believe there is no certainty other than as the Buddhists would say that life is suffering then you could drop this whole charade.

Here is a certainty for you. If you keep clinging to the past it is certain to repeat itself and your dreams of a better life will go unfulfilled. Truly exceptional people understand that there is no certainty and they accept it. Once you understand that nothing but suffering is certain then the whole world is available to you. Just to clarify even though life is suffering there is a path to the cessation of suffering, so even suffering isn’t 100% certain. My advice is even though we seek certainty, we will never really find it. Seeking certainty is a human trait that we have used for thousands of years to help us survive on this planet. Now your desire for certainty is just an impediment to making progress. Stop It!

Brainwashing / Social Conditioning

Is it the fear of the unknown or have you just become so brainwashed and conditioned that even though the guards have left the building and opened the gate you still remain in your prison cell? Oh, hell it’s probably a little of both. Habits can be a tough thing to break, especially those that don’t serve you anymore. Maybe you have been working in a profession for twenty years or more. You feel safe in the knowledge and skills you acquired over the years. It would be nearly impossible if your whole identity wasn’t associated with this role/profession. You have become a Doctor, Lawyer, Software Developer, Security Architect, Plumber, Teacher, Social Worker, Electrician, or whatever it is you do for a living.

In fact, this profession has become your past and it has an effect on all the other factors that are holding you back from pursuing your goals, passion, or dreams. It might be that you didn’t start out wanting to be an Accountant your whole life, but over the years that is exactly what happened. It’s not only you who see yourself in a particular role, but so do the people close to you. You will hear people say that human beings are creatures of habit. That may be where it starts, but ultimately you have been brainwashed or conditioned and this role becomes your identity. You might think you are a role that you play, but you are just assuming that role for some period of time. You are a multi-dimensional being and as such you are capable of learning new things and assuming different roles, so if you spent twenty-plus years as say an Accountant it doesn’t mean you need to spend the next 20 years in that role. That’s why I like Jim Rohn’s short but profound quote:

If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.

Jim Rohn

Lack Of Confidence

Maybe it’s not just the brainwashing or desire for certainty that is holding you back. Maybe it is a lack of confidence in yourself, a feeling that changing the direction in your life and doing something completely new scares you to death. Every time you thought about doing something else in the past you talked yourself out of it. You would say to yourself that you can’t learn the skills you would need for this new type of work or even take up a new hobby. Deep inside you know that’s just bullshit! I mean how much did you know about your current role ten or twenty years ago, or back when you were in High School?

Did you ever wonder why some of the stupidest people in the world become so successful? Well, one of the things they are not lacking is confidence. In fact, I would hazard to guess that they sometimes border on being egomaniacs. I’m not advocating that you become an egomaniac, but instead, realize you have infinite potential if you just begin believing in yourself. Look at your track record and all the things you have achieved and succeded at. You need to understand that you will develop the skills you need to achieve your goals. You may not possess them now, but put in the effort and you will succeed and this will help you overcome any lack of confidence you currently have.

Advice From Those Close To You

If you love what you do for a living then keep doing it, but if you’re working at a job that bores you to death or worse yet, you hate it, move on. One of the other things that could be holding you back from taking the leap besides desiring certainty, brainwashing, or a lack of confidence may be other people. Is a family member, a spouse, or a friend advising you to keep doing what you are doing? Many of us have been raised to take care of others as our priority. Does any of this sound familiar? You don’t want to disappoint people close to you and switching careers could directly affect them. It isn’t really your uncertainty that is stopping you, but instead, it is theirs. The thing is that when it is all said and done, this life you have is actually yours, but you don’t really view it that way. Hey, you and most of humanity are either totally self-absorbed or people-pleasers.

Remember as we reviewed your own uncertainty and conditioning well those close to you also see you as a role(s), and your desire to do something different with your life is unsettling to them. Don’t be surprised when you discuss your goals with them if they aren’t ready to get on board with this new plan. So should you continue to live your life for everyone else? Hell No!

If they cannot support the new life you want to lead then here is where you have to get a little selfish. You only get one shot at this rodeo we call life and you can either claim your life or live it for others, it’s ultimately your choice.

Conclusion

We have talked about planning over action, desire for certainty, brainwashing and conditioning, lack of confidence, and advice from those close to you, as factors contributing to clinging to the past. I personally have experienced all of these and it has caused a lot of grief and procrastination. While these factors are powerful forces that keep you reliving the past, they pale in comparison to the pain that will haunt you from not pursuing a better future. These factors are dream crushers and for you and me they become convenient excuses for not pursuing our dreams.

I hope that this post has shed some light on what might be holding you back from pursuing the goals that could lead to a better life. I would love to hear what you think.

Namaste

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“Copyright 2023 TheStoicBuddhist.com“

Love Impermanence

We live our lives seeking situations or things that are permanent. This might include a relationship, a profession, investments, our bodies, or beliefs. It is human nature to plan for the future seeking a sense of certainty as if we had control over the present or the future. Here is one of my favorite quotes by Thich Nhat Hanh:

Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist, founder of the Plum Village Tradition. One of the primary tenants of Buddhism is impermanence. Impermanence is the lack of permanence, or the fact that everything is changing, thus nothing is really permanent or even certain. I guess if there is any certainty it would be that nothing is permanent. As you are reading this your body is changing, the weather is changing, even our own most strongly held beliefs are under siege. Because of impermanence our plans for the future are at best a wish and in reality are extremely uncertain.

If you can accept that everything is impermanent you will begin to free yourself from worrying about your problems. If everything is impermanent than so is your pain and suffering. That situation that is causing you so much grief is likely to change and you will inherent a new problem to worry about. Flip the coin and the joy you feel today may be replaced by pain tomorrow, or by some other form of happiness. You might be thinking well all this in not very comforting and what am I to do about this impermanent life of mine? The answer is that there is nothing for you to do. If you need to do anything it would be to simply accept impermanence and live in the present moment.

Listen, I’m not saying you should not make plans, but any plan you make must include some flexibility due to the fact that whatever you have planned will likely need to change. Working towards a goal you have can be a wonderful thing, but then impermanence steps in and what you are working for may no longer be possible to achieve. Remember impermanence does not equate to something negative and in fact it often will result in new opportunities that avail themselves if you are willing to embrace uncertainty and drop your bullshit adherence to the plan you have in your head.

Let’s say you have this job working for some corporation and your plan is to work there for the next 5 years and then retire. However your company begins losing market share and they have to eliminate your high paid position. You could be angry, start blaming the company or yourself, and have a nice pity party and this might be something you decide to keep doing for the foreseeable future. For someone who embraces impermanence this kind of reaction to the situation would be impossible. The person that accepts uncertainty would say Fuck it and move on. The plan you had is no longer valid, but you think well let’s take a look at this world of possibilities and act upon some other interests you have. I have personally been in similar situations and every time a door closed, another one opened and the change only enhanced my life. This is why I love impermanence because when you embrace it you learn and grow as a person, you become unstuck. Here is another quote from Thich Nhat Hanh:

Learn to love impermanence and all will be well with you.

Namaste

 

There is no destination

Ralph-Waldo-Emerson-Quote-Life-is-a-journey-not-a-destination

I am a Project Manager by profession, and as such I do a lot of planning for the future. One of the things we found over the years is that it is difficult to predict the future with any degree of accuracy and thus agile frameworks like Scrum and Kanban were born. Well if you can’t even predict what needs to be done and how long will it take for something as finite as a project then why do you expect to do this in a more complex scenario called your life.

I’m not saying you should not have goals or for that matter you should not plan things out that can be planned. The problem lies in having some stupid attachment to the plan while watching the failures accumulate as you doggedly follow a plan that is flawed. Like I said it’s good to have goals, but think of them more in terms of what you need to accomplish in the next couple weeks or a month instead of having detailed plans that span months and years. If you use an agile method like Scrum you would have a backlog of goals (Epics) and things you need to do to achieve the goal (user stories and tasks). Instead of making yourself crazy just pick a couple user stories from the backlog that will help you achieve your goal and focus on those for the next couple of weeks.

As your journey through life happens your goals will change, some may disappear and others will become more grandiose, and this is good even though it might not adhere to the plan you had in your head. Remember your not married to the plan, at best your just dating it. Life is unpredictable and when it’s all said and done the journey is your life. The plan is just a manifestation of your need to create some form of certainty in the future and deep down you know this is just bullshit. Let your belief in your goals or dreams drive you, but abandon the fucking plan. So what happens when you quit the long term planning game and focus on the short term; you might just find you will be living in the present moment and shit starts to happen for you and I don’t mean bad shit.

Eckhart tolle realize the present moment

Again dream big, have goals, and work towards them, but try just for a while to bring that planning into the short term as tasks that you can actually accomplish. I personally like Google Tasks because it shows up in Gmail and Google Calendar. I then see these tasks when I’m using my laptop, tablet, Chromebook, or my phone. Choose some things you need to get done today, tomorrow, and a week from now and leave it at that. I encourage you to stay focused on today and guess what all the rest of the shit begins to happen for you. Do this for a week and let me know if you start to see and feel the difference in your life.

Namaste