My Plan A’s are awesome. They’re amazing. Awe-inspiring, even. This is because they only exist safely inside my head.
My Plan B’s are messy, uncertain, stutter-stepping. They are awesome-less. I’m frustrated with my Plan B’s and look down on them simply because they are not my glittering, glamorous Plan A’s.
Get Real
Plan B’s are Plan A’s with one added bonus – reality.
My Plan B’s have to account for other people’s ideas, money, time, energy and the fact that I’m often not Plan A material. You know the right stuff? Well, most days I’m the other stuff.
I wake up with the urge to pull the covers back over my head and get a few more of those glorious morning snoozes. I know what’s out there waiting. It’s more reality.
Reality Is Not Bad
Truth is, reality is where life happens. Imagination doesn’t count. Dreams inspire us and guide us but they don’t go on your resume.
My idea for a best-seller doesn’t matter until it hits the cold water of reality at the deep end of the pool. I must dive in, go under and come up sputtering, wipe the chlorine from my red eyes and write the thing.
Inventions that never leave the cozy inside of my brain mean no more than the thing I wish I had said or the book I never read.
Reality Has Goose Bumps
I must write the book or build the business or do the exercise or say the thing. I must sweat the sweat, invest the time and lift the load or it doesn’t happen.
I will have sore muscles. My back will ache. I must pick up garbage, pay bills and go to the grocery store for the things I forgot. I must walk in the rain or drive behind mist-blasting trucks.
Reality gets wet and bedraggled. Like puppies or toddlers, it’s messy and will not be denied.
The Secret of Plan B’s
But here is the secret no one wants you to know. All of the successful Plan A people around you living their Plan A lives, driving Plan A cars to their Plan A destinations, they are all liars.
It wasn’t Plan A. Plan A existed only as an ephemeral dream, perfect, untouched, until it hit the rock crusher of reality. Then it changed. It morphed. It ducked and parried. It bled and healed.
In short, everything you see is Plan B.
The Two Things
So, don’t wait for perfection. It will never come. Instead, remember these two things:
- An imperfect plan, forcefully executed, beats a perfect plan every time.
- There is no perfect plan.
Photo Credit: enki22 via Compfight cc
