Control Your Destiny: Have A Plan

The only way to achieve a goal is to first have one.

So you want to control your own destiny, decide your own fate, and make your own luck? Well, you've come to the right place. We already know that nothing is impossible and everything we do is a process of processes. Combine the two and you end up with a series of processes to achieve the impossible.

Also known as a plan.

If you want to achieve anything, you need to have a plan. And to make a plan,  you need to know three things: where you are, what you want, and how to get it. Knowing where you are and what you want are the easy parts. Figuring out how to get what you want is the trick. That’s when you need a plan. And it just so happens that we use plans all the time. 

All. The. Time.  

• If you are going to bake a cake, you need a recipe (a plan). 

• If you are going on a road trip, you need a map (a plan). 

• If you are going to assemble an IKEA dresser, you are going to need instructions (a plan).

These are all plans to get you from where you are (without a cake, in the wrong place, a floor piled with clothes) to where you want to be (eating cake, seeing the sights, having a place for your underwear). You can certainly get to these places without the plans, but it is going to be sooOOoo much more difficult. If you don’t have a clear plan to make a chocolate cake, you may very well end up with vanilla fudge (a fine outcome, but not the desired one). You might even end up with a chocolate cake, but that would be completely serendipitous.

If you really want to get fancy about it, you can call the parts of a plan different things:

• The goal = Destiny

• The plan = Fate

• Good things that happen along the way = Luck

Using these words makes almost everything you do seem almost magical: Eating chocolate cake is your destiny. Following the recipe is your fate. And luck? That’s finding eggs at half off. If this makes making a plan more interesting for you (and it should), then use those words more often. 

So let’s decide your fate and create a plan!

FIRST THING IS THE LAST THING

The first thing you need to do is figure out the end (your destiny). Whether small or large, you need to define the outcome: what you are trying to achieve. Outcome has three parts to it:

1. What you want: Whatever it is you want, you should define it as the greatest thing it ever could be. Outcome is not just a “good enough” definition, it is a “perfectly perfect in every way” definition. Outcome is the place where you get to let your imagination run wild and create something better than anyone could ever imagine. No one ever plans to do something half-assed. If you are going to bake a cake, bake the best damn cake the world has ever tasted. If you want to become a baker, become the best damn baker the world has ever known. Aim high! (I mean, why not? This is your destiny. Make it spectacular.) 

2. When you want it: Put a hard deadline on what you are trying to achieve. When we don’t put deadlines on things, we tend to push them back (and back, and back, and back). You can’t just say, “This is going to happen someday,” because we all know someday never comes. You need to say, “This is going to happen by next Tuesday,” because we all know next Tuesday is coming at us like a freight train. Recipes include cook times. Maps include drive times. I’m not sure if IKEA includes build times in their instructions, but if they do, you should probably double it (That’s been my experience with building anything). Your When is important for big plans and small. If you need to have something done by the end of next week, BOOM! That’s your When. If you are making life altering plans for five years out, pick the date that is five years from today. Seriously, look at a calendar and find the date.

3. Write it down: This cannot be understated. Write out your outcome. Define your What as clearly as you can, pick your When on the calendar (or clock), and write that shit down! We often “see things clearly in our heads.” Problem is, our heads are notorious for being lackadaisical with how details interact with each other. Putting your ideas on paper forces you to think through them clearly and communicate them with others. It also holds you more accountable to the deadline.  

This is your outcome - your destiny, if you are so inclined. In the end, this is what you want to have happen, and it’s great. But it’s not a plan. It’s a start (or an end, really), but it’s not a plan. I’ve seen many people come up with an outcome and then stop, as if having the end-game defined miraculously makes it happen. It does not. This is only the beginning (or the end, really… you know what I mean).

CUT YOUR TIMELINE IN HALF

Once you know your What and When, and have Written them down. Pick the moment that is halfway between now and your deadline and figure out what your plan should look like at the halfway mark. If you draw a straight line between now and then, what do you need to have done by the time you are halfway there? Yes, you have to write it down. Clearly define what you will need to have accomplished at the halfway mark as clearly as you have defined your ultimate outcome. Now you have a What, When, and Write for the midpoint.

What you are doing here is building a trajectory. A clear line of sight between where you are now and where you want to be.

NOW CUT THAT IN HALF

Ah, damn. You gotta do it again. Cut your timeline in half again from your start to the midpoint. Define what you need to accomplish at this point to get you from now, to the midpoint.

DO IT AGAIN

You are probably starting to see a trend emerge here. Depending on how far in the future the deadline of your plan is, you may need to cut your timeline in half a couple of times. In fact, if you really wanted to, you could keep cutting it in half until you get it down to what you need to be doing in the next few minutes. That’s a bit extreme, but you get the picture. Cut your plan in half until you have a clear idea of what you need to do right now. 

Define what you need to do immediately to put yourself on a trajectory to hit the next waypoint.  

TADA! YOU HAVE A PLAN

There it is.¹ You have decided your fate. You now control your destiny. You may be thinking, “yeah, but what about the luck? I was promised I could make my own luck.” Well, today is your lucky day (see what I did there?) because when you set your plan in motion, you put yourself on a collision course with fortuitous happenstances that could only come into being because you are working your plan. If “luck” is preparedness meeting opportunity, then controlling your destiny by deciding your fate prepares you for the opportunities that arise because of it.

That last sentence was a bizarre thing to write. Almost as if I had planned it.

1. *If your deadline is so far out in the future that the midpoint to your goal is more than (say) a year, you will probably want to revisit your plan completely to insure your stated goal still aligns with your present desires. If it does, great! Go ahead and redefine your waypoints from where you are now. If your present desires no longer align with your goal, adjust your goal accordingly, and reset your waypoints.