So Much for Plan ‘A’
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Introduction:
Welcome to Awareness for Everyone, A Podcast about Conscious Reality Creation, and living the best lives we can for ourselves. I am MJ Blehart, writer, blogger, editor, and 21st century philosopher. Welcome to Episode 14 – So Much for Plan ‘A’.
Part 1: What do you do when Plan ‘A’ fails?
It doesn’t matter what the project may have been, because if it’s gone and done there is little to nothing more you can do at that point.
When life is going how we prefer it to go, chances are we didn’t make a plan ‘B’. I mean, who thought plan ‘A’ would go to shit, and leave us in this spot? But not having a plan ‘B’ is actually fine. It’s not entirely necessary.
Why? Because how would you know what it will look like? Since you didn’t expect the plan to go south, how could you have created an appropriate plan ‘B’ to address it? Answer is, you probably couldn’t.
Part 2: Recognizing the Reality of a Failed Plan ‘A’
First – Shit happens. So very much of what happens in our lives is totally out of our control. Recognizing this and accepting it can go a long ways. And no, I am in no way saying we have to like it.
Second – No plan survives contact with the enemy. I have been doing medieval fencing for quite some time. In the game I play, we do melee combat – team on team fights. One of the first rules of this combat is that no strategy will survive contact with the enemy. Why? Because when they move, odds are pretty good they will NOT move as we want them to. Ergo, plan is no good.
Third – Change is inevitable. We live in a constantly changing world. Even the most static and apparently staid matter is, in fact, changing. Recognizing this makes accepting it, and the failure of plan ‘A’ a much easier pill to swallow.
Fourth – Self-recrimination is pointless. If you take the blame for the failure of your project, this will inevitably begin a downward spiral. From there, you will likely find more fault, and more reasons to blame yourself for the plan failing. You can certainly be accountable and responsible for some of the causation of the failure of the plan, but accountable is not the same as taking the blame. Accountable is acknowledgement, whereas blame is reproachful.
Part 3: What Follows Plan ‘A’ after it Fails?
I am not dismissing having a plan. Going through life just waiting for shit to happen is not tremendously useful, either. However, we need to reconcile the idea that no matter how good and detailed a plan we make, things will happen that can derail it.
Not everything that wrecks your plan is bad. Sometimes we need our plans to change. Why? Because maybe we didn’t account for something, or some other experience has changed an aspect of ourselves or our lives in such a way that the plan changes, too.
For this reason, it is important to be flexible with your plans.
Being mindful that change is a constant
Closing:
Thank you for listening to Episode 14 of Awareness for Everyone, A Podcast about Conscious Reality Creation, and living the best lives we can for ourselves. I want to thank Fe Mahoney, the artist who created my amazing cover art. If you would like to commission work from her, contact her at veinsofink2017@gmail.com. You can reach me via Facebook at blehartmj, or Twitter at mjblehart, or e mail me at author@mjblehart.com. Please take a moment to check out my blog, The Ramblings of the Titanium Don, at titaniumdon.com, and now at Medium.com as well. Thank you, and I hope you are discovering how mindful awareness is something you can practice to improve your life.
