Welcome, Lateral Action readers! I’m glad you found your way here from my guest post today on selling your art. Advanced Riskology is all about getting more from life by taking bigger and better risks. Thanks for joining the movement.
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This is pillar #3 of a 5 pillar series that I’m writing for adventurous risk takers looking to change their lives by taking more chances.
Anyone can do something crazy, but it takes a little more finesse to do it great and the steps aren’t as well known as you might think.
Be sure to sign up for free updates to keep up with the lessons and get some unpopular but very effective knowledge about turning your scary ideas into reality.
Make A Plan You Can Abandon
Depending on how you do it, planning can be one of the most important or least important things you do when you prepare to take a big risk.
A well thought-out game plan can take a vague idea you’d never act on otherwise and give it the concrete footing it needs to feel possible. A plan give your ideas legs and arms.
On the other hand, it can totally cripple your progress and destroy any chance at success from the get go if it’s done wrong.
In my experience, people who don’t like to plan usually feel that way because it just feels like guessing or like they’re tying themselves down to something they’re not sure will work. “If you get it wrong, what’s the point?” they say.
But that’s exactly the point. You’re going to get it wrong. You have to.
Remember, we’re taking a risk here. We’re doing things we’ve never done before like quitting our jobs, starting businesses, traveling to strange places, and pushing ourselves to the extreme. There’s no 12-step-plan that’s guaranteed to get us there, and that’s why we have to make our own if we want a chance at all of actually taking action.
We need a plan that we’re allowed to abandon. A plan with an escape hatch, lets call it.
If you think about it, this is exactly how a business plan works. Here’s a little secret about business plans – nobody that ever wrote one had any idea if they’d gotten it right or not. They just made their best guess.
To make an effective plan, you have to pretend that you have all the answers, and then set to work testing them.
This plan gives you your solid, baseline assumptions – something you can actually act on. Then, when you start testing your assumptions and find out half of them are wrong (this will happen), you throw those ones out and start over, or you revise them until they can actually work.
Planning is a fluid process, not one that starts and stops before you actually start doing. Planning is an integral part of doing. There’s no stone tablet and no obligation to follow it perfectly.
In fact, as soon as you allow the plan to become the be all end all, that’s exactly when you’re in deep trouble.
Take The Titanic, for example. The goal was to deliver 2,300 people safely to New York City. The plan was to do it on a cruise ship.
Obviously, an iceberg put a damper on that plan, but the crew was so attached to it and so sure of it’s “unsinkable” ship, they ignored iceberg warnings for days before they finally hit one. And when they did, they were still so stuck to the “plan” that they didn’t change course and start dispatching lifeboats until it was far too late to save everyone. As a result, 1,400 of those people drowned unnecessarily. Complete tragedy.
When I decided to launch Advanced Riskology, the goal was to create a blog where people could learn how to appreciate risk. I didn’t really know what I was doing, so I just guessed. I made a schedule that covered what I thought the important aspects were and would keep me on track. Then I set to it.
Well, as you can guess, I got a lot of those things wrong, but I let them go when I realized it, revised the plan to my new best guess, and got back to work. And here it is, Advanced Riskology, up and running.
The path that eventually got it here doesn’t even come close to resembling what I first pictured, yet here it is.
If I’d stuck to the original plan, I’d have never made it here. But, if I’d never made the plan in the first place, I’d have no idea where “here” is.
So, as you’re getting closer and closer to taking the leap on your next big adventure, whatever it may be, remember that you’re going to start with very little knowledge about how to actually attain it. That’s OK. Just give it your best guess and revise like crazy as you learn what actually works and what doesn’t.
You’re allowed to get it wrong as many times as it takes to get it right.
What does your current plan look like? Does it have an escape hatch?
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“Planning is an integral part of doing.” And also the other way around: DOING is an integral part of PLANNING. Of course, this comes out of your article, too, I just wanted to highlight it the other way around!
As for escape hatches, my plans wouldn’t do without them! Great article, Tyler!
Right on, Fabian. You plan so that you can do with direction, and you do so that you can plan for reality. Can’t have one without the other.
Part of having an escape hatch is learning to plan only the essentials. Grand, elaborate schemes tend to fall apart quickly. It’s worth the time and effort needed to strip a plan down to its core objectives and assumptions; a minimal plan is quicker to implement, easier to adapt, and MUCH less stressful.
That’s a great point too, Jeffrey. Get your “barebones” plan together and let that be the guiding philosophy. No need to get into the gritty details. If you’re doing it right, those are going to change all the time, anyway.
Yup, +1 for barebones plans! I think it’s useful though to practice what Chris Guillebeau does, i.e. having plans for shorter AND longer terms, as to keep the big picture.
On the money, Fabian. Either way you flip it around, the point is to do and then do over as necessary.
*Applause*
Versatility and action are two key elements in success – No matter what the goal is.
If plan goes wrong, don’t think of it as a failure. Think of it as education (sometimes costlier than others). The only true failure is not doing anything.
A costly education is always much better than a failure, that’s for sure.
I love your what you are doing! I just found your blog and will recommend it to many. This is the time for Risk. This is the age of Risk. The old logical ways to do not work as they once did. Risk away readers!! Thanks.
I named my Lizard brain Lay-Z like Jay-Z but better. Thanks for that suggestion. It’s helpful for sure.
Totally agree with this sort of planning. I keep an eye on the prize as things change along the way.
I often feel as though I’m living in the escape hatch. I’ve got the great and highly rewarding day job and consider it my escape hatch while I do things on the side. More and more though, “the side” is becoming so much more fun!
Can’t wait to hear about the day when “the side” finally takes over (assuming you want it to), Michael.
I like that Tyler. Many would argue against the escape hatch though. For some, you have to burn your own bridges to really achieve your goals.
Personally, I agree that you have to remain flexible with your plan – and have one in the first place.
Could you write something about ‘having different irons in the fire’? Would this go against your ethos of ‘not having a plan B’?
Inasmuch as its important to live with less stuff, spend less, live minimally, etc., there’s no getting around the fact that money = energy. Energy to buy food, go places, make dreams possible (for instance, your trip to Tanzania next year).
It’s possible, I’m sure you would agree, to view money benevolently, as incarnate gratitude for a service rendered. That being said, I think there’s a certain point we all need to get to first, in terms of savings and fiscal solvency, before ‘going all nuts’ about our dreams.
Can you write something about long-term planning? Is it really only possible to achieve one’s dreams right now? What about finding whatever is good about one’s current reality and focusing on that – while having ‘irons in the fire’? Are those of us unwilling to bungee-jump off the cliffs of our current lives – today – really so dull and irredeemable?
G/
Sometimes I’m an artist….the amazing part of that is when I can picture the finished piece in my mind and about halfway thru “something” comes along and changes it into something else (something better)…..it takes on it’s own life force, LOL…..
Part of your plan should have a built in flexibility clause, always. Part of your plan should have a “keep your eyes open for any/alternative opportunities” clause in it, too……
OK, so I’m looking at this from 2 perspectives.
1. I have a plan with an escape hatch. That means to me that I’m unsure that my plan will work and I’m hesitant getting into it.
2. I have a Goal. The plan on how to get there may change. I can tune my course as I get going depending on the feed back I’m getting. (Internal sensors) But I do have a Goal that is a burning desire. I believe truly and fully that I WILL get there, just not sure exactly *how* at the moment. I do trust, however that as I align myself with my goal, opportunities and solutions will come to me.
In some way just needing an escape hatch feels like the track or goal may not be the right one? Then, maybe one should scale down the goal until one does not need an escape hatch?
Dunno, Tyler. Just my way of thinking
Yet, one should also know that IF one abandons a plan that it is not failure, just a course correction!!