Make plans and plan for possibilities

Recently on?the Best of Both Worlds podcast, Sarah and I did our annual?“year in review” episode. We both listened to our?Goals 2022 episode?(which ran in late 2021) and then reported back on whether we had fulfilled those intentions.

In many cases, the answer was “yes,” though we noted that reviewing the year through the lens of the goals we’d set a year prior would not be a universal choice. Some years, the biggest things that happen are not explicitly stated goals. And some years, goals have to change a lot.

There’s a famous John Lennon lyric (he was quoting others) that “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” I know many of us have experienced the upheaval of life diverging from plans over the last few years, and there’s even a school of thought that goals are pointless given how much is out of our control.

But my response to that assertion is the same as when people argue that time is just a construct. It may be, but someone still needs to pick up my kids at 3:30 p.m. Time is a very useful construct, and goals and plans are a useful way to shape the parts of the future that we can shape. Ideally we can make plans and be open to possibility.

How do we do that? First, the plans we do make should be doable and specific. As longtime readers know, over this past year I read through all the works of Shakespeare. I noted that my anthology had 1024 pages, meaning that I’d only need to read through about 3 pages per day to meet that goal over 365 days. I got a reading calendar someone had devised, stuck to it, and indeed finished.?

But goals should also allow for plenty of open space. I plan to read through all the works of Jane Austen in 2023, but I anticipate that this will take only 15-20 minutes per day. That leaves plenty of time for whatever new wonderful books (or old ones) catch my fancy — or any other big personal projects that might seem like a good idea. I have some specific writing projects I intend to do in 2023, but that won’t fill the entire 2000 hours or so I will likely work this year. If some delightful opportunity comes my way, I can take it.?

With the right mindset, holding these two thoughts simultaneously — that we can make plans and be open to possibility — can even make the year seem more enticing. You create wonderful plans for those things that are unlikely to happen randomly, like reading all Shakespeare’s works or transporting a large family to a popular vacation destination during spring break…and you’ll have wonderful things happen that you never even saw coming! That’s a lot of wonderful things.

Now, to be sure, life can deliver up not-so-wonderful unexpected things too. But that’s when the existence of concrete and doable plans can help. Even if the rest of life is a disaster…I probably will end this upcoming year having read a lot of Jane Austen. That will help me feel like I’ve done something worthwhile in the 8760 hours that comprise 2023.

So what would you like to do over the next 8760 hours? There is plenty of space for big goals and serendipity too. Looking forward to the year, I’m excited for my plans and planning for possibilities. I hope you are as well.

This article originally appeared in an email to my newsletter subscribers. You can sign up at https://lauravanderkam.com/contact/.