The Psychological Rewards of Planning

How many times have you done something and then felt, “Oh, I should have thought about that before!”? Quite a few of us are sailing in the same boat when it comes to issues like the above. This is because when we find an interesting task ahead of us, we cannot resist jumping into its execution as soon as possible, without foreseeing what we might encounter while its execution and how we may have to deal with it. Consequently, the chances of success achieved depend upon your luck, and are uncertain. Wouldn’t you be more assured of success if you could visualize what you’d be doing, make a blueprint of your course of action, foresee any requirements and problems and thereby design your actions towards performing your task? This is planning. It helps you to be prepared better to complete your tasks with fewer glitches and greater success, though it doesn’t always guarantee success.?

Planning is an innate cognitive executive function of the brain that comprises neurological processes that form thoughts, analyze them, and select the most appropriate to achieve the desired goal. Every organism plans sometime or the other. The tiger waits patiently to pounce on its prey at an opportune moment. It has to plan its attack to be successful. A housewife has to plan the dinner that she’d provide by evening and ensure the availability of resources for the same. An organization has to plan its strategies for business success.?

The psychological impact of planning:

1. Improves futuristic thinking: When you plan, you visualize the actions that you would take in the future, what you’d require to execute those actions, and the outcome.?

2. Improves lateral thinking: In the planning stage, you may think in more than one way. This improves the ability of your brain to approach an issue in diverse ways, whenever required, to arrive at a solution.?

3. Helps develop organized and result-oriented thinking: One of the first steps of planning is to define a goal. By defining a goal you have a clear idea of where your efforts should lead you to. Accordingly, you organize your steps in reaching your goals. Thus, the mind learns to think in a result-oriented and organized manner. This reduces impulsive actions and fancy thinking leading to no concrete output.?

4. It improves confidence: The planning process makes you aware of the positive and negative aspects of each and every step that you would take. You can always work towards minimizing the negative effects, which helps build your confidence in achieving the final outcome.

5. It reduces anxiety of uncertainty: At each and every step of planning, you can estimate the risks involved and prepare to minimize them so that as you proceed with your actual task worrisome factors don’t surprise you.

6. Increases your self-esteem: When you plan well, you work efficiently. You minimize wastage and?utilize your resources and control them better. You are valued better by your team which regards you for providing them direction in a methodical manner. This boosts your self-esteem.?

By Leena Kamarraju