Does the thought of planning make you feel weak in the knees? The idea of goal-setting make you feel queasy? And resolutions–are they just a setup for certain failure?
Even if you don’t do resolutions or formalized goal-setting, we all have to make plans for work, home maintenance, finances, schedules, etc. Planning is a necessary task common to us all.
I’ve often heard people say about themselves, “I’m a planner.” Usually I hear it from those annoying inspirational people who seem to “have it all together.”
These are the people who have all their ducks in a row, so to speak. They’re never caught at the last minute having to scramble to complete tasks.
You won’t hear most people who are NOT planners bragging about it: “I like to fly by the seat of my pants. I never plan, and it works out great,” –said hardly anyone, ever. Or at least not likely anyone who accomplishes greatness… or even goodness…
Planning problems and me go wayyyyy back…
When I was a public school teacher, one of the things that royally stressed me out on a regular basis was planning. If you’ve never been a teacher or had one in your family, you may not know that teachers generally have to turn in lesson plans to their principals each week, detailing what they plan to teach and how they plan to teach it.
I can remember my principal, who was a grace-filled, lovely, Christian man, saying at the beginning of one year, “If we fail to plan, we plan to fail…” All I kept thinking was, “I’m doomed!!” I somehow survived, and even made teacher-of-the-year once, but not because of my stellar planning, I assure you.
The weight of the responsibility was crippling for me. I mean, if the planning were so pivotal, what if I were doing it incorrectly…? (I may have mentioned my special talent in past posts: I can make anything harder than it should be.)
What’s the big deal, you say? Well, I was actually contemplating that very question last week, as I was working on plans for future blog posts. (Ahem… Something I PLANNED to have done before the beginning of the year.)
I think my trepidation stems from the idea that planning, goal-setting, and worst of all—resolutions— all seem like big scary animals. Oh my!
So the other day, when I finally laid down some plans, it occurred to me right before I began, that perhaps I have been looking at planning the wrong way this whole time.
See if you can identify with the PLANNING issues I’ve been having for a very long time.
I concluded that (at least) three FALSE notions have been derailing my planning, perhaps all these years!
1. Plans/goals/resolutions have to be exactly right, or all is lost.
Perfectionism–it rears its ugly head yet again–is at the root of this way of thinking. And pride. As if anyone could even MAKE the perfect plans!
I think I put off planning often because I (understandably) don’t feel up to such an impossible task.
I seriously believe I must have an epic planning session for which I’m perfectly prepared with plenty of rest, all the right tools, a pristine work surface, absolute quiet and no interruptions, and countless hours of research done ahead of time.
After all, there are people who make a living selling courses just on goal-setting the RIGHT way! There must therefore be lots of really WRONG ways!
Honestly, could anyone live up to these standards?!
2. Plans CANNOT be changed, once they are planned.
Related to the first notion, the idea of making plans set in stone because it would be SO much trouble to change direction in the middle of any process causes me to pause or never even get started planning.
I convince myself that plans must be laid out to be followed to the letter, or what’s the point of planning in the first place??
What pressure to come up with plans that will good enough to never need modification!!
3. Anything that falls short of the plans is failure.
If I make progress, but don’t complete my plans/reach my goals within the timeframe and to the extent I originally envision, I have failed.
Therefore, I am a failure.
Too big to fail small to do it on my own
I think as it turns out, I’ve imagined myself as being too important in the planning process. And as usual, I make much too big of a deal out of the process.
Proverbs 16:3 tell us, “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.”
Hmmm… Perhaps I should be less daunted by the idea of planning, and more confident in God’s guidance and provision as I go.
Reframe your thinking.
After all, planning is just a way to organize our thinking.
If I’m organizing–a task, unlike planning, that I LOVE–I don’t beat myself up if I don’t organize a room correctly on the first try.
I don’t assume that once a room is organized that it can never be changed.
I don’t give up if my first attempt at organizing a space gets derailed or takes unexpected turns.
If I could begin seeing planning as just a way to help organize my mind, and then approach it with much prayer and the understanding that the Lord is ultimately in charge of my plans, what an easier task it would be!
Don’t be ruled by the calendar.
There is. no. rule. that you can only start something new at certain momentous times! Like the first day of the year, for example.
Perhaps this is why so many New Year’s resolutions fail. Hitting consistent, goal-related behavior every day for a year is great, but it doesn’t have to be from January 1 to the next January 1. We’ve made that rule up.
There is a funny meme that goes something like this: “It’s the third week of January, and I’ve blown it on my New Year’s resolution not to eat junk food (or insert other behavior here). Oh well, I guess I’ll have to try again next year!”
In other words, it’s better to throw away a whole eleven months of opportunity than to initiate a “fresh start” at the wrong time of year…? Even I can see the faulty logic in that scenario. Yet my brain often wants to sabotage my years, months, and weeks for the sake of that “tidy fresh start.”
Trust HIS plans–and think about the bigger picture.
Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
Sounds pretty encouraging, right? Well… this verse is sometimes taken out of context as a sort of reassurance that God’s got big plans for our individual lives.
And while we know God cares for EACH of us (he even knows how many hairs on each of our heads–see Luke 12:7) this portion of scripture is addressed to God’s people collectively, while they were still in Babylonian exile.
So can we still take something away from it? Maybe look at Jeremiah 29:12: “Then you [Israel] will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.”
God’s plan included ultimately redeeming His people for their good and for His glory.
Perhaps we could begin to think of our plans less as OUR plans, but more part of HIS larger plan. Everything we do is about HIM, and we function as a part of the larger body of Christ.
Consider the lilies…
With proper perspective, we can see that perhaps our goals and plans aren’t what’s keeping the world turning. Our self-importance shrinks with the proper understanding of God’s sovereignty. And yet, despite our shortcomings and relative smallness, He loves us and cares about what’s best for us, which is always, ultimately for Him to be glorified in us.
So I’m here to tell you, any time is a good time to start planning! Start where you are. Pray a lot. Don’t be perfectionistic. EXPECT twists and turns in the road. And be prepared to make changes if they’re needed. Be teachable.
Learn from my mistakes. Don’t make the task bigger than it is. And rest in the Lord.
And know I’ll be cheering you on and learning right along with you!
Blessings,
