Planning To Be Blindsided

"Everyone has a plan until they are hit." - boxer Evander Holyfield

I love a good plan. Once I reached college I developed a taste for organization that helped me be a better student than I'd ever been, and that success has driven my nature in that direction ever since.

Trial and error have also taught me that perhaps at least as important as a plan, is a backup plan!

Case in point: I recently volunteered for a position of leadership in the community. I volunteered for it with an explanation that a certain vision of what the position could accomplish is what interested me. One of the representatives of the organization bought completely into it, so I set about diving eagerly into the details, bringing some life to the idea.

However, I had been careful to express my interest for the position with the caveat about the vision. In my mind, even as I worked hard on the concept and began sharing it with others for opinion, I was prepared for what eventually and disappointingly did become reality - the director of the organization spurned the idea. Due to the readiness for that response, cultivated by experience in volunteering with dozens of other organizations, it was an easy and relatively emotionless choice to withdraw my interest and move on to find a better fit for my volunteer hours.

I didn't feel that I'd wasted that time building the vision. During the work I'd actually developed a new skill - creating fill-in forms on Microsoft Word.

In some ways, planning ahead helps to live in the moment!