[SMALL THOUGHTS] Stop Setting Goals and Making Plans, Speed Up the Action

Do you set goals and make plans? I love it!

I have a ton of goals and a plan for each one. And then usually I make plans for perusing my plans, like road maps. And I measure and define my goals more strictly by fractioning my bigger goals into smaller ones, then into concrete everyday steps. And I write down small plans for each small goal and each step – I have fancy notepads for that purpose. I feel so excited when doing my plans and defining my goals.

I keep doing that although it’s TOTALLY USELESS. I’m like addicted to goal setting and planning.
The action of dreaming, shaping that dream in a concrete pathway and writing it down makes me feel up. Makes me feel like I’ve done half the job.

Except I didn’t.

I haven’t even started. It’s all just a dream, a goal, a plan. On paper, of course, it’s already reached. It seems my mind doesn’t make the difference between reached in my notebook and reached in reality.

And what happens, is that all the stuff becomes rubbish and I’m ready to start planning my next goal.

Actually, after all the preparation process is done, I feel exhausted. I managed to go all the way down from the idea to the realization by mapping it down in my thoughts. It feels like almost done and that’s why my mind is already on the search for something new. What that means is that sometimes I hardly start and even if started – barely finish anything.

What a vicious circle!

You’re in the same situation? Listen, here’s how I began changing it.

Squeeze every second

I reduced much of the planning. It takes too much time in thinking, dreaming, guessing the outcome. Instead, I focused much more on the action. Sometimes I just finish a task and write it down afterward (only ‘cause I love seeing it done on paper).

I read about that recently in a story about Gary Vaynerchuk, he uses that phrase – micro speed. It’s about understanding what our 24-hours day is made of. And it’s hours and minutes and then seconds. So you have to use the full potential of every second in order to fill with meaning the minutes and the hours, the days, weeks, months, etc.

And it’s even not about wasting your time on Facebook, TV shows or pure laziness. The meaning is we have to act, to be doers and leave the planning only for that moments, we have to see where we are and where we’re going.

I know this somehow opposes the theory you have to set goals in order to know where you’re going and when you arrived there. The theory there has to be a strategy and plan. But micro speed and planning can go together very well. Just don’t put too much time and effort into your plans and don’t act without having any. Balance.

And it’s in human nature to be more productive in drafting a process than in putting it into action. It has to be the opposite if you want to move from A to B. The question “What’s the best/fastest/easiest route?” matters almost never.