© 2024 Melanie White
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I’m super on top of planning, and so people tend to come to me as a business coaching or resilience coaching client to get help with getting organised.
And rather than talk about transformations, today I’d like to talk about four benefits that my clients experience by being better planners in business and life.
Planning is a skill that anyone can learn. So even if you’re not very organised or systematic in the way that you do things, you can learn to improve those things for a calmer, more productive and more satisfying life, that you feel more in control of.
Let’s get started with those benefits!
The first benefit of planning is that it circumvents decision fatigue. Here’s what I mean.
If you don’t have a plan, then you have to constantly make decisions about what to do next, all day.
This can lead to you feeling out of control, unclear and disorganised. And the human brain has a limited capacity for decision-making each day, so without a plan, you are setting yourself up for what’s called decision fatigue.
Without a plan, by the end of the day, you probably won’t be able to work out how you spent the day, whether you achieved anything, and you will likely feel rushed and stressed, mentally drained and tired.
But let’s look at the alternative – having a plan.
Let’s say you turn up at your desk on Monday morning and you have a plan for the day. You’ve defined in advance what you will do and when you will take lunch, and your lunch is organised and in the fridge.
You have a realistic list of tasks to complete, and you get them done easily and on time, so you can knock off work at a reasonable time and without feeling rushed.
Because you’ve planned an hour to yourself after work, you get to exercise or unwind, or whatever you’ve chosen to do then, before transitioning into an evening of dinner, family time and a restful night’s sleep.
It sounds idyllic, right? But this is possible with a plan.
The second benefit of planning is that you set and achieve goals that are truly meaningful for you – not just goals that you think you should do.
When you take the time to truly consider what you want and how to get it, you will feel more in control, intentional and purposeful, rather than just letting life happen to you.
You are intentionally choosing things that will take you directly on the path to your vision or bigger outcome goals, and you will feel good about moving in the right direction.
You’ll feel more positive, and like you are doing what you’re meant to be doing.
In other words, the act of planning ahead gives you clarity, the chance to make purposeful choices about your direction and to map out the specific steps to get there.
I think a lot of the time when people are dissatisfied or feeling chaotic and disorganised, it’s because they’re vague about what they want and why.
For example, let’s say that you decide you want to ‘eat better’ – but that’s as far as you’ve gone. What does that actually mean?
Does it mean that you’ll eat vegetables with every dinner, buy takeaway only once per week instead of four times, does it mean that you’ll eat carrot sticks instead of chips in the afternoons?
You can see where I’m going. If you’re not specific about the actions you want to take, and if you have no plan to take those actions, then you’ll probably get lost along the way.
The flip side of that is having a plan where you know exactly what you’ll do and when.
Sure you might not feel like doing the specific activity when the time comes, but this is the work of making change – learning to persist anyway.
As long as you define specific actions that you enjoy taking, and/or you have support to make sure they happen, you will feel organised, and in control of your life and you will start seeing the results of your actions.
Yes, the results you have today are directly related to the habits you do each day.
Being specific about what those habits are and how and when you will do them, sets the scene for progress and achievement.
Let’s finish on another positive part of having a plan – the chance to recognise your success.
So few of us actually take the time to recognise how far we’ve come, what we have achieved, or what we are achieving on the way to our goal. Even being consistent with a habit is an achievement even before the outcome has been realised!
When any of my clients feel demotivated on a journey of change or lose self-belief, I can help them flip that feeling around in under 5 minutes by simply asking them to walk through all that they have done and achieved so far.
When you have a plan in place and clear specific actions that you are marking off in a diary or list, then it’s easy to visually remind yourself of your progress toward your final goal.
Why would you wait until the end to recognise the final result, when you can enjoy the motivation of recognising your progress along the way, as part of your specific plan?
Having a plan and ticking things off is an easy, quick and fantastic way to recognise your achievements and build self-belief, which creates the motivation to keep going with your plan and achieve the end result.
Planning is a powerful tool to feel more positive, and uplifted and to achieve what you want in life.
In my experience with business and resilience clients, it is the key to success, happiness and purpose.
As discussed today, when you create a plan to succeed you can enjoy benefits including:
If you’d like to hone your planning skills, reach out for a good fit call to see if I can help you to live a more purposeful, satisfied and productive life!
Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.
Learn more here:
© 2024 Melanie White