I’d wager everyone has goals, in whatever field of pursuit. If you have goals, you hopefully have a good plan to accomplish those goals. This is an article about adherence to the plan, whatever that may be, to whatever goal is being pursued.
While the aphorism, “No plan survives the real world”, holds a great deal of truth, that doesn’t imply that you shouldn’t plan. What it does mean, is that you should always have a plan, and you should always expect it not to work, and you should always try as hard to stick to the plan.
Today’s article focuses on the last step: taking actions to try to stick to the plan.
An important note, this article was written in the backdrop of health-related goals. Compared to other goals, like business goals, health-related goals, and therefore the plans that go along with them, oftentimes are more straightforward. While the principles can be applied to all goals, my focus here will be on those health-related goals.
Planning Philosophy
One philosophy to planning, is to consider as many possible paths as possible. That is prudence, and is great. The problem comes at the point when the decision has to be made; where one needs “integrity in the moment of choice”. [1]
The worst thing you can do isn’t to fail in planning, it is to fail in executing; paralysis by analysis.
Interestingly, we can draw some lessons from studies on Happiness. In particular, the brilliant book by Dan Gilbert, ‘Stumbling on Happiness‘, of which I quote:
Not knowing what we are missing can mean that we are truly happy under circumstances that would not allow us to be happy once we have experienced the missing thing.
What that is telling us, is that we are happy based on the options that we can imagine; that chocolate cake is only as good as your previous impressions of chocolate cake.
What that means, is that restricting our options may not objectively be the smartest thing to do, but it may be the most effective thing to do, by getting us off our butts and actually doing something that we have given some thought to.
Not knowing all the options, may actually help by:
- Making you clear about the decision you are going to make
- Making you ACT decisively
- Giving you peace of mind regardless of the result
Remember, this wasn’t a rash decision. It was pre-meditated, with the eventual admission to the fact that one can never have perfect information. It gives the brain comfort, a numinous kind of “I’m doing the right thing” acceptance of consequences that no one else but yourself and give.
Concrete examples
There are mundane examples. For example, deciding whether or not to go out with friends instead of study. Or deciding what foods to eat today. For these sort of decisions, most people don’t sweat it despite the millions of options available to them because they restrict their choices based on what they value at the time.
If you think that the explanation above was a stretch of logic, it just goes to show that we don’t bother thinking about such things. However, we do think about such things when we approach bigger topics.
For example, whether or not to take commercially-manufactured supplements. Some people are adamant about such things. It goes against their values of consuming only “natural” foods. Others say that they should do everything that they can to protect themselves against the free radicals.
If you were perfectly rational and scientific, you will see they there are tons of research out there with conflicting results. Some (large-scale) studies show that there are negative effects of supplementing with anti-oxidants, others show positive results. If we solely based our decision on the available research papers (assume that you can read every one), how do you decide?
In other words: The decision becomes a leap of faith.
Alright, not many people may be that obsessive about taking supplements. But I will guarantee, that if you were staring death in the eye, contemplating the various options to treat your heart condition, you would be obsessed. If you looked at all the possible options of treating your disease, I will guarantee you would be stumped. Do you take surgery? Do you try new (untested) therapies? Do you take that particular surgery that has a 50% chance of working.
Your answer is based upon your values, and you restrict the options accordingly.
Final Words
One of the essential life skills to have, in my mind, is to be able to project oneself accurately and earnestly into the near or distant future, and take your happiness at that point in time seriously. If you can do that, then making decisions today require a lot less mental and emotional energy.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
