A Critical Lesson For Goal Setters

 Planning for uncertainty. 

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.

Written by: Brett Young

Article is also available on LinkedIn.

Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. Goal setting is easy when we look at the path of achievement as a perfect path to get what we want. But none of us live a life of perfect and there will always be uncertainty along the achievement path.

The only thing that is certain chasing any worthy pursuit, is that we will uncover a significant level of uncertainty. So, a strategy that we can use is setting up ‘protocols.’

Protocols are strategically planned out actionable responses to unexpected events. When something happens unexpectedly, what is our planned response? If we know that our achievement plan is going to have curve balls thrown in along the way, can we get ahead of what some of these curve balls might be? Can we get strategic and think through what some of these ‘distractions’ or achievement hinderers may be ahead of time, so we can plan out an actionable response… a ‘protocol’ to be activated, for the sole reason of being better equipped to deal with the uncertainty. To reduce the time we are taken off the path of achievement. To reduce the impact of the distraction.

A perfect example is; “I’m going to go to the gym every day.” But then I find myself in a hotel room,because I’m traveling and there is no gym. How many push-ups am I going to do? How many sit-ups am I going to do? What does that look like?

If we set up smart protocols, like this one, we know exactly what’s going to happen when life hits us. We have strategically planned for the unexpected and put protocols in place to assist us during the more challenging events that pop up along our achievement journey. Nobody lives a life of perfect, so don’t assume that it’s all going to go right, because that’s just not the case.