I love it when a plan comes together.
If you’ve ever seen The A Team, you’ll find this phrase familiar. Colonel Hannibal Smith uttered it dozens of times — in both the 1980s TV series and the 2010 film adaptation.
The phrase resonates with us because we find it serendipitous.
It’s a magical feeling when everything just works. But it feels ever more satisfying when we play a part in making that outcome happen.
We are better positioned to make the most of our good fortune. For the groundwork has already been laid.
This is why many of us obsess with planning. With envisioning the possibilities and putting in the work to make them a reality.
We fill our calendars, set budgets and forecast possibilities. We give ourselves marching orders and then follow them religiously.
It’s dutiful work. Routine work, even.
But it might be a waste of our time.
God laughs at your plans.
This phrase makes me wince.
Not because I’m one to question God’s work. Far from it.
No, this phrase makes me wince because of the utter futility it describes. Specifically, that of making plans and seeing them go to waste.
For I am a planner.
I relish the opportunity to prepare for what lies ahead. In fact, one could say I obsess about it.
I chart out my meals for the upcoming week even before I make my way through the supermarket aisles. I get tickets to sports events or concerts weeks ahead of time. I show up to the airport two hours early to ensure my checked luggage makes it on the plane.
I even regiment my days. I set an early alarm on weekdays so that I can work out, freshen up and take care of other household tasks before I even head out the door to work. And I make sure to wake up with the sun on weekends so that errands don’t eat up too much of my day.
My calendar is my compass throughout this process. I want to make sure I’m on time, on budget and on top of things.
Above all else, I want to maintain control. After all, such tendencies are in my nature.
Still, I know I’m fighting an uphill battle.
For all measure of obstacles lie in my wake — from real-time changes in the weather forecast to daily fluctuations in my health. There’s no sure way to see these coming, which means advance preparation for them is, at best, half-baked.
Even on the micro level, unpredictability abounds. Friends and family can put together last-minute events. A sudden traffic jam on the highway can make that trip to the airport take twice as long as it should. A supply-chain issue can leave many of the supermarket shelves barren at the moment I’m pushing my cart down the aisle.
And when it does — when God laughs — it can be utterly frustrating.
I’ll seethe as I think of all the energy I’ve wasted preparing for a future that turned into pure fiction. I’ll lament being blindsided by the current reality. And I’ll second guess every plan that led me into the current predicament.
This is not the best response to unpredictability. But when you obsess over planning, it’s often Live by the sword. Die by the sword.
And all too often, I find the bitter end of that proverb.
Is planning futile?
Not exactly.
Certainly, an overarching reliance on a plan can hurt. My own experience bears that out. So does the failure of the Centralized Economic Planning philosophy under the Soviet bloc.
But going without a concrete plan can be just as devastating. When Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812, for instance, there was no plan for how his army would handle the upcoming winter. The harsh conditions decimated the troops nearly as much as the Russian forces did, leading to a humiliating defeat.
The overarching lesson is that planning is important. But only to a point.
We have to be ready for what should come to pass. But also to expect the unexpected.
I call this The Planning Paradox.
The Planning Paradox is an uncomfortable concept.
For it demands that we do our due diligence, yet still be ready to turn on a dime.
Few of us are naturally that agile. On the contrary, we tend to fall into one of two camps: The Planners and the Reacters.
Planners do what they can to control their environment ahead of time. Reacters analyze the environment in the moment and respond to it ad hoc.
In order to find success in life — in work, in relationships and elsewhere — we need to use each trait. But only one of them is inherently dominant in each of us.
Personality tests help surface that dominant trait by forcing us choose between them on each question. They embolden us to circle the wagons around our position of strength.
But The Planning Paradox challenges us to broaden our approach.
The Planning Paradox first encourages us to embrace the dark side. To learn how to manage the approach we naturally repel.
For Planners, this means accepting the chaos and going with the flow. For Reacters, it means taking the time to prepare for future outcomes.
Then, The Planning Paradox requires us to combine the two approaches into a single protocol. One that sets the rules of engagement, and then determines the conditions for breaking those rules.
This is not an easy ask. And the ambiguity of it can weigh on us. But the strain is for our benefit.
For such an exercise encourages us to think on our feet. To get comfortable with the uncomfortable. To add slack to our rigid approach.
These are the muscles we need to flex. These are the skills we need to master in order to thrive in a world that’s equal parts routine and unpredictable.
So, let’s stop fighting the Planning Paradox. Let’s stop ruing the energy we waste on plans that go bust. Let’s stop wishing that the world did away with schedules altogether.
Let’s get out of our corners. Let’s get used to thinking outside the box.
That is our only way forward in this perfectly imperfect world.