Why Does Planning Seem So Hard For So Many?

How good is your planning? Can an ocean going yacht reach it’s destination without planning? What about your business or life or career?

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You’ve all heard the cliche: “if you fail to plan, you’re actually planning to fail“, haven’t you? Do you realize how true it is? Still today? What if I asked straight out if you had a plan, how might you have to respond?

Could you show me how good your planning is? Or would you have to admit that like so many Australians, planning isn’t one of your greatest fortitudes?

Planning A Holiday Or Planning Your Life?

In “Do You Have A Plan?” I suggest that most people invest much more time planning an annual holiday than they ever spend planning their life or their career. Remarkably, these same people will develop the greatest plans for their work project or their business, and yet, when challenged, will admit that they have never done one for their personal life. Can you relate? Strange isn’t it?

So what is it that seems to make this so hard? Is it that we are simply too “busy” to have time or make time to plan what we want to be, have or do in a future period? Is that it? Or could there be more at play here? Is it maybe because we are afraid to make a commitment in case we don’t deliver or fall short on meeting our own expectations? Just like our left brain mind chatter can keep us from “Having A Go” so that we don’t set ourselves up for failure, right?

Or what other “excuses” might you offer if this is true for you?

So before you feel offended by my directness of questioning here, let me assure you that there are very few of my hundreds of clients who could show me a really good degree of life or career planning when I challenged them this way. This seems to be a “national disease”.

So What Do We Do About Planning In A Coaching Program?

Well, usually it’s borne out of the client not being where they want to be, despite many years (even decades) of really dedicated hard work. This is often the catalyst for them to reach out and want to work with a coach. Someone that they can trust. That they can use as a sounding board to road test their thinking. Someone that, with the right questions, can guide them into areas of thinking they haven’t been in before. That can accompany them through the challenges and “bumps in the road” of the new and unfamiliar. Most importantly, someone that will hold you accountable to doing whatever you really want, takes. No “chickening out”. Just measurable, tangible and very rewarding results.

And do you know what (almost) every program covers? Goal setting and planning. And do you know that in the rarest of cases do I have to teach these people how to plan? Most already know HOW to do that. However, once they understand the value of it (the WHY), also in their personal life, off they go…

Planning: Your Line In The Sand…

So can I ask you to draw a line in the sand? One that denotes that “enough is enough”? And then can I suggest you to firmly abide by my “11th commandment*” and honestly ask yourself these 4 questions:

1.  Will continuing as I have been doing get me the results I really want?
2. Or is it time to reach out to find my personal thinking partner that will hold me accountable while guiding me through thresholds as yet unattainable for me?
3. What am I so afraid of?
4. What am I still waiting for?

* (my 11th commandment suggests that you can BS anybody else as much as you like, but you can never BS yourself.)

So go on, as we go into the “silly season”, why not reflect on these questions and make one of these life changing decisions that so many of my clients did, and that has enabled them now to look back on extraordinary results in satisfaction? Or you can just leave it as it is, and know that you might have to look back in regret instead. Your call. What is going to make the new year truly different for you and your life’s work? What if this were one of those great catalysts?

If this has raised questions for you, please email me at and Let’s Talk Coaching.