Why Most People Failed because of Planning

Planning is considered to be the core of everything before you actually started doing something. If you had experience going through some tough time in life, try to recall how many times that things are so much tougher than what you initially expected and try to think, would things became better if you had invested the necessary time for a complete plan before you actually dive into it?

Around my near-30th generation, I begin to experience hell lots of planning needed for almost every single thing that I need to fill up in my daily life. And I'm also at the stage where I can observe and easily see how others deal with their planning.

I'm always interested to see friends who wanted to start a business and at the stage of planning where they suppose to sketch the entire route map and list down the A to Z of their business plan. What interest me the most, is how much struggle they had during planning.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I enjoy seeing people struggle and lost of direction to do something that they suppose to have great interest with. Just that the idea behind "doing something that they are interested with but at the same time, they had so much struggle in it" is kind of an ironic yet it's a real life situation occurred behind the human mind.

The Anatomy of Doing What You Like But You Ought to Struggle A Lot

Isn't it sounds familiar somehow? If it's something that you like to do or you have a strong desire to achieve it, where is the struggle coming from? Isn't that sounds like you wanted to torture yourself?

The truth is, doing things that you like doesn't always means the subject contain only things that you like and there is absolutely nothing that you don't like.

Being in a relationship with someone you love has the same concept. You love someone because of certain traits that attracted you. But at the same time, there is no human being that you would only love and he or she is so perfect that there is nothing you dislike or hate about it. You love the person you love, but at the same time you dislike or hate something that they have.

It's the same for planning for business. You love the idea where you are the owner of the business, and you are capable of taking up something challenging and hold certain positive value in the society and the business world that has the chance to compete and show the people and the world how capable are you to grow the little seed of yours into a huge and significant business, but you hate it when the times come where you have to deal with all sort of stuff that is not in your preference list but you know that you must go through them to get what you want.

Irony or not, that's how people practically is. There is no perfect plan in the world where you can just do what you want to do and throw away whatever you don't like but still able to achieve what you want. Those who want to do so ought to struggle even more because when they refuse to accept the reality, the cruel reality get to become more visible and taunt down their life. And thus, became one of the reasons you see situation where the more people hate about a subject, the stronger desire they had to do it.

And unfortunately, people is a creature that strongly depending on their feeling and desire. It's bloody difficult to accept something that you dislike and hate something that you like. In the end of the day, we frequently looks ridiculous to ourself when we say that we hate it but we want to do it so much. And we suffer a lot because of such a double edge feeling in our heart. As well as doing something that we really love to do even if it's something that you've been desired since years ago, you ended up hate doing it.

The Misconception Between Planning and Result

From my experience dealing with people, many people out there know the importance of planning. "Failed to plan is plan to failed" is always a practical idea for me, so it's a good thing I see people willing to put effort into planning.

The only problem is, I doubt people actually have any solid idea of why is the planning all about other than doing it because other people is doing it, or the so-call "successful" people are doing them, so they should do it.

One of the struggles is the idea of trying to use planning to achieve result. Well, you want result and therefore you need a good plan that can help you to eventually achieve the desire result. The idea is great and nothing wrong, just not accurate enough and that could increase the chance of failure and cause more obstacles than ever if you didn't consider properly.

Try to visualize and think about the concept of Planning-Result methodology to run a business, any type of business will do.

In this case, I will use a florist business as example. Imagine this, I wanted to run a florist business because I love flowers and plants, I want to own a shop that is full of beautiful and natural flowers and plants that looks colorful, feel comfortable and refreshing for whoever step into my shops. In the Planning-Result methodology, this will be my concept:

• Planning: To identify ways to gather the flowers and plants, and get a place to run the business
• Result: Own a florist shop full of natural and colorful flowers and plants

Now that I done what was stated in my planning, I got all the flowers and plants that I want, and I got a pretty nice place to put all my colorful kids, I can start decorating and run my business just like how I visualize it in the beginning.

But hey, is my desire result just to create a florist business like that for awhile or for long term? Needless to say, it's for long term, so where are all the following thoughts and planning gone to?

• Tools to maintain flowers and plants
• The brand of fertilizer for all the colorful kids
• Long term renting budget & planning for the shops/place
• The type of design and pattern to decorate the shop so that all plants and flowers look beautiful and comfortable
• Who is my targeted customer?
• Who is the supplier for fertilizer and tools?
• How much I need to earn per month to cover up all operation expenses to maintain the business?
• How much I'm able to earn after reducing all operation expenses for the business and is that enough for my living?
• Etc.

If I had thought of this in the beginning of my planning, my Planning-Result methodology suppose to be something like this:

All these little fragments are not something that I can finish them within a single day, probably not even a month or two. Every single one of them need another set of complete planning and thoughts, and they are necessary to maintain the result of owning a florist that full of the colorful and natural design, AND to maintain it as a business in a long term.

Now look at all the little fragments between the Planning-Result. With all the fragments stacking up, touching on the final result that I want is actually quite far away and not every single part of them is what I truly want to do, but I have to do it because that's what could achieve and maintain the result that I wanted.

And here is the main point:

Things that I want	Things that I hate but I have to do it
Own a florist business with colorful and comfortable flowers and plants	Deal with planning on budgeting & operation cost, dealing with suppliers, targeted customers, etc

When you learn that there are so much that you need to cater for when you plan, and you can't escape from it, you will feel the burden even though you knew that it's part of what you want in the end. As you go with it, you easily feel fed up and tired, and you might get to a point of wondering why are you doing this at the first place.

Don't find it hilarious or silly, it's actually quite natural for feeling tired over something that you have interest in but when it's not part of your preferences. This is exactly the burden and uneasy feeling that rip off your interest and passion to continue going for what you planning to achieve in the earlier stage.

Do not fall into Result Focused Mindset

Planning-Result is a straight forward thinking that somehow lead people to think that the end of their planning would be the result. It's just natural that we start to do planning and do all sort of things because we want the result. But reality don't work that way. planning is not a method to achieve result, it's a complete thoughts that help to identify the path you need to take, as well as identify which are the stepping stones and rocks that you need to beware and look into.

And all these definitely take time. If you are planning to achieve things as soon as possible, it's quite likely that the result would not be fruitful and you won't enjoy as much as you thought it would.

Planning is not just something that you need to do so that you can get the result. It's mean far more than that. It demonstrate how much you are capable of building the necessary path towards the desire direction. And the direction is not all about result, it's not suppose to be a straight path moving directly to the destination.

Your path should allow you to gain more and expose to more opportunity other than the result itself. If you see nothing but the result during your planning, I doubt you truly understand what's the result is all about.

Instead of going all the way towards one destination, create a path where you can learn more and make yourself a better person. Even if it's only for planning, it doesn't take only planning & management skill to draft a good plan.

You need perseverance, and you need to learn that you can't rush things out. You must achieve things one step at a time, and the targeted achievement need to be practical, small but meaningful enough to make progress.

You also need good decision making skill and deal with trade off. There are always times where you have to choose over something you dislike and work on it without failed, and best without complaining and hate it when things don't go as plan.

Last but not least, you need constantly watch where you are going. Planning is a must in the beginning, but it's also crucial in the long run. You don't plan because people say you should plan before doing something, you plan when you really understand planning is a practical behavior to ensure you know what you are doing and what is your aim, and you can clearly tell people what your idea is all about without hesitate and doubts in yourselves.

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When the Conciousness is Fading, Will You Regret It?

I'm unsure if it's because of the massive improvement of the internet, or it's simply because I'm having greater interest in this world as I grew up, I realize that this world is becoming more like a mess.

In a random location of the earth, the uncontrollable natural disaster would strike at any time, and terrorist is no longer a tiny treats towards a small part of the world.

As we sit down comfortably in a peaceful environment, did you ever thought that the next seconds could be the moment where you have to face the last moment of your life?

In the recent earthquake of Tainan, no one would ever foresee the disaster before it happen. Everyone was living through their daily routine, troubled by their studies or work, looking forward for their upcoming vacation, recall about the drama they watched last night, being upset for the recent comments towards themselves, and so on.

Several months ago, when ISIS attack Paris and other countries, it was a harmony situation that turn into a horrific event that costs massive amount of heartbeats to be stopped and before that, people have to go through the unexpected fear in their entire life and leave like everyone else. After living for so many years, whatever trace that they had in this world, all the memories that carved deep into people's memories, turns into a tiny dust and dive deep into the unlimited dusts in the universe without any trace. And the consciousness fade, they can only accept the cruel fact of what human should be accepting at the end of life.

No one in the history willing to accept anything like that. No one would sincerely, willingly accept this so-call inescapable fate. Everyone has dream, and many things that they wish to achieve in life. And unlimited things that are really important throughout their life, and only they would understand in the dept of their heart. And their family, friends, and all those who had however a tiny bond in this life, no matter what sort of conflicts and feeling they had before, it's all precious and no one willing to let it disappear within this world.

However, there is no way for us to avoid accepting the reality.

We are truly lucky, we do not need to worry if we are able to survive until the next morning. We don't need to deal with war and suffering, and we have choices and freedom to choose our desire path. All the dreams and wishes that we had, is just a matter of how we going to achieve it, there is nothing like impossible for us to do it. But if the next moment would be the final moment of your consciousness and it's the end of life, will you regret it?

We knew that there is no way we can run away from this. I believe this is not the first time you came across any articles that talk about appreciating life and avoiding regrets, but are you sure that your truly understand the burden of regrets and you are going to feel when such negativity going to remain in the last minute of your life?

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Actual Meaning of Wasting Time

We all know what does it means by wasting time Precisely, claiming that someone is wasting their time basically just means that they are doing things that doesn’t create actual value for themselves and/or for others.

There are unlimited behaviour and situation where people are considered as wasting their time but the most important factor in this post is regarding the type of value that wasting time is referring to when people use that term.

One common situation where you heard people use the terms “wasting time” is when people play games. Especially for the elders, our generation are very well aware of their perception that playing games is nothing but entertainment and only meant for fun and that’s it. People who play games will not get anything at all afterwards but enjoyment that could not be seen. And the larger concern is the addiction to games and unfillable desire to keep on playing. That is something that contribute to more reasons for elders to think that playing games is absolutely a waste of time.

But we need to consider a fact, games had became one of the major industries in the world of IT. And putting the games addiction aside, games companies are getting better in creating games that not only create the terminal disease call “games addiction”, they also work to produce games that involve educations and learning for people for all ages. And guess what, who are those who developers that create all these games and where did their inspiration came from?

Great inspiration couldn’t be produced by thin air, the games developers are people who experience playing wide range of games and for some reason, they get to produce better idea and turn their idea into output that bring benefits (aside for games addiction) to the society and making the IT world much more creative. Here is my main point in above scenario: If the game developers playing game means wasting time, is this means that their effort to create better game and contribute to the growth of IT world is also meaningless? That’s definitely not, IT world had become much wider to ease our life, and otherwise you wouldn’t be able to read this blog post now and so on.

Most of the time we think that a lot of things that doesn’t mean anything to us are wasting time, but there is one theory I found to be very true: there is nothing that actually waste time in this world. Not only because seconds will keep on counting as you breath on, for every waking moment, your mind is working and thinking. No matter what you do, you are able to utilize your mind to think for something beneficial and for the goods.

Even if you are doing nothing particular such as waiting for bus, standing under the ceiling waiting for the rain to stop, siting at your home sofa to think what you want to do later, or playing a game, your mind is always working and you are able to utilize your capability for thinking and learning.

Sometimes we are bound to certain factors that we couldn’t do what we want that has value for us. For instance, you need to go home to do your work but you couldn’t because of the rain. Instead of feeling frustrated and do nothing but waiting for the rain to stop, you can think and recall what you need to do for your work. Plan about it if you have not do so, think about what is the next step, review your plan to see if there is any way you can work it out faster and better. Or else, think about something else in your mind. Do some thinking, or write down something in your mind if you have notebook or into your phone; if you are playing a game, other than just play on and do what the game ask you to do, you can observe on the design of the game and think how to produce games with amazing graphic and how well is the features of the game compare to others. This is how wasting time does not apply to you when you think about something meaningful in whatever situation you are in.

On the other hand, the actual wasting time would occur if you do not produce a proper thoughts when you could. Take standing under the ceiling while waiting for the rain to stop for instance, you might think about a colleague in the workplace that is offending you or you dislike, or you think about the TV shows that you watch yesterday and try to recall the shows. These thoughts are not a waste of time, but they are a waste of time when you are only thinking about them for the sake of thinking and these thoughts doesn’t give you any value afterwards.

So if you are only thinking about something that you doesn’t need later on, you will be wasting your time as you can always choose to think something better that could improve your life instead of just thinking something that will occur in your life but doesn’t really important afterwards.

This does not only apply to some of the situations in our life that is outside of what we want to do, it also happen when it’s comes to our main life goals such as studies, work, and living. One main concern I have is for people who put high amount of focus in work for salary increment, better performance, and better job advancement. All these definitely create values in our life as better salary means we are able to get better life and better performance means people have better impression on us, and we will eventually become a better person with better status and financial in the society, right? WRONG, why do you need them for?

The very basic concept of this post is one thing: wasting time means doing things that doesn’t create value. Your salary increment and better performance generate more income and better impression for you, and that is true. But what is the value of those in your life? All of us always obsessed with more money and better status so that we can get more things in life and get more fame, but is it true that we can’t live without better income and status? What does better income and status really have to do with the value in your life?

This is something that you need to think through and you have to provide a clear idea for the values of all these efforts for yourself. It’s not the matter of how hard you work for something, it’s all about how much you know what you are working for, and why are those important to you to know that if you are utilizing your time properly to create important values that you truly desire to know that if you are wasting time or not.

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