Follow your plan, not your mood.

As i’m sitting on the train with flushed cheeks and feeling so sweaty that my jumper that was on me is now rolled up in my lap i’m realising something.

Firstly, don’t book a train in advance and then leave the house with 15 minutes to spare for a 22 minute walk…also, maybe not having an option B is the answer, maybe it’s what we need to be able to just simply get. things. done. Any other day I wouldn’t have booked a train in advance because then it leaves no room for a change in decision or doesn’t allow for me to be late and get the next one, that wasn’t an option today.

Imagine that I live my entire life that way, now you might think this train metaphor is getting a bit deep you just need to be more prepared to catch your train. But I’m not talking about trains, or rushing to get to the bus or running to your appointments because you’re ill prepared.

I’m talking about the expectations we set for ourselves and if we genuinely want to reach them, what if we stopped accounting for the fact we might not reach what we’re aiming for but continue to aim anyway. What if plan A was the only plan and that in its entirety is what we put everything towards. Then if we don’t get there, we change the plan but we never change the goal.

See a plan b allows room, room for excuses, room for avoidance, room for us to not try so hard. It allows us to think low of urselves because in essence thinking that we need a plan B incase plan A doesn’t go to plan means we are preempting failure. Don’t get me wrong i believe failure is good for us, many of the people we read about for creating life changing phenomenons such as the lightbulb, cars, google and many many many more failed numerous times. Some will have failed more then others but without failure we don’t have growth, and without growth there is no space to explore a different version of us, no space for us to see things from another perspective which in a perfect world would never get to happen, it leaves no space to explore the ideas that come to mind when things go wrong. Failure is good for us, but expecting failure from ourselves isn’t so great. You have to create a WHY so important that no matter the obstacles, no matter your mood or the unfortunate externalities that many of us face day to day that you will still give it everything.

Expecting perfection from ourselves day in day out leads to exhaustion because it’s a reality that is simply put, far from reality.

So yes plan ahead and leave enough time so you don’t have to speed walk and get on the train with a minute to spare but also believe in who you are, believe that you can and that you will get to where you want to be no matter the mountains that need to be climbed, no matter the failures which may occur, choose to follow your plan not your mood. Choose to leave the back up plan behind because you and only you can do everything you were put on this earth to do, you have a purpose, and a rarity like you doesn’t come around so often so give it everything you’ve got. Plan A holds substantial weight, and its a weight you can 100% carry.