We Don't Plan to Fail, We Just Fail to Plan

It's a well-known fact: long-range planning never works. We almost always get to our goal through means other than the ones we put on our schedule. So why plan? Because people who don't make long-range plans seldom get to where they want to be.

In short, a plan will get you to your goal, but not in the way that's on the plan.

So, plan. And, be prepared not just to change horses in midstream, but to change to a boat in midstream. Keep your goal, your Dream. Stay firm and fixed on that. Be prepared, however, for whatever methods come along to get you there. Especially methods not on your plan. Plan on it.

How to plan? Simple. Take a segment of time, take a goal, and divide up the latter into the former. Keep dividing it up until you have a next action step — something you can do right now to move toward your goal.

Let's say you want to produce a play within the next year. Get some kind of calendar that divides a year into units with which we're all familiar — months, weeks, days, etc. Twelve months from now, write, "Play opens." You have the goal (the play), and you have the time (twelve months). Now, chop up the goal.

What needs to happen before the play opens? Make a list. One item per 3x5 card is good, or list them on a sheet of paper. This list doesn't need to be in any particular order. Brainstorm. Free-associate.

When the list is complete, put it in order, according to time. What needs to happen first, second, and so forth. "Find a play," for example, would probably come before, "Design the posters."

If something is a toss-up ("Do I find the play or the director first?"), choose the way in which you would like it to go, and schedule that. Remember: little of this will go this way, but if you don't do it, you won't get a play. (If Shakespeare can end a scene with a couplet, we can end a paragraph with one.)

Now, start laying these out backwards in time. How many weeks of rehearsal? Six weeks? Put those in. That means casting and theater will have to be completed by six weeks before a year from now. How much time do you want to work with the director before casting? Put that time in. Continue.

When everything is roughly laid out, you can ask yourself, "Is a year enough time? Is a year too much time?" Let's say a year is a good period of time — not too ambitious, not too lethargic.

Continue breaking the plan down until you know what you must do next — something specific you can actually, physically do. "Find a play," is too vague. "Call these twelve people and let them know I'm looking for a play," is a workable next action step. This might be followed by, "Read plays submitted." That's a do-able action step.

When the plays are submitted, the action steps become more precise, "Read DO IT! The Musical!" would be a next do-able action step. (And an excellent one, too, we might add. It has this great opening number, called Let's Get Off Our Buts, and there's this marvelous scene with the dancing comfort zone — like the plant in Little Shop of Horrors — and, well, a word to the wise producer is sufficient.)

Now, start scheduling the next action steps. When will you call the twelve people on the list? "Next week" is not good enough for that one. When next week? What day? What time? Schedule it in. If you don't have an appointment book or calendar of some kind, by all means get one.

Don't wait until you have the "perfect" one. ("I plan to research time-scheduling systems real soon now.") If you don't have one, any one is better than what you have. (And when you want a great one — and a productivity course to go with it— call ICG at 213-829-2100.)

When you diagram your Big Dream, plan to do something on it every day. Remember when we suggested that if you don't plan to devote at least fourteen hours per week — two hours per day — to your Dream, maybe it's not a big enough Dream, or maybe you don't really want it? Here's where that Dream begins to manifest — in the fourteen (or more) hours per week you schedule it into your calendar. The fourteen hours next week you schedule it into your calendar. The two (or more) hours you schedule it in tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that.

They can be general things — completing this book, for example, or making some exploratory phone calls, or, if you are a producer, finding out if there really is a musical version of DO IT! Your Dream may have some very specific action steps that can be scheduled today — or tomorrow, at the latest. "I will write from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m. tomorrow."

What does writing look like? Seat-of-the-pants-in-the-seat-of-the-chair. The output may be one word or one thousand. For writing (meditating, phone calling, or any number of things), getting off our buts means getting on our butts — putting it into a chair and not moving from the chair for a set period of time.

Don't plan specific events too far in advance, especially early on in a project. One exploratory phone call might change the entire course of your project — a method may appear that's far better than any you may have considered yourself. Expect that. Do plan specific amounts of time doing something on your Dream every day. Those segments of time will fill as the project rolls (and flies) along.

Someone once said, "A blank sheet of paper is God's way of letting you know what it feels like to be God." So is a blank calendar. A calendar for the next year represents your time, one of the most precious commodities you have. Use it well. Choosing what you want to do, and when to do it, is an act of creation.

You are creating your Dream.

Write Things Down

Everyone is a professional writer. You may not get paid for writing per se (the first rule of writing is never use the phrase per se — the New Yorker once had a cartoon of a street sign that read, "No parking, per se"), but you will be well-paid for what you write down.

Make lists of things — things to do, people to call, letters to write. In fulfilling your Dream, you're in business for yourself. Pursue your Dream with all the tools of the business world. One of the basic tools is listmaking.

People who want to appear clever rely on memory. People who want to get things done make lists. Even if you're good at remembering things, write them down anyway. That way, you don't have to remember them. Your mind is free for more creative pursuits.

The two enemies of memory are time and volume. Over time, we tend to forget. (Who sat two rows behind you in third grade?) And, when there's too much to remember, we forget. Write it all down.

Make notes of phone conversations. Most of these notes you'll never look at again, but when they come in handy, they come in handy.

Send letters to people confirming things, and cards thanking people for spending time with you on the phone. (You'll be getting lots of favors as you move toward your Dream.) These letters and cards can be handwritten — sometimes while you're still talking with the person. It's a nice gesture, and when you need another favor (and you will), the person is more likely to remember you fondly.

Dare we end this chapter by saying, "Write on!" No, we're professional writers. That's a cheap pun, and, although it may amuse a few people, it might make us look foolish.

Write on!

(We told you to take risks. Why shouldn't we take some, too? Which, in fact, segues neatly into the next chapter.)

Taking Risks

As often as we are counseled to "take risks" by the successful people of the world, that's about as often as that counsel is ignored. For the vast, vast majority of people, taking risks is just too, well, risky.

If we don't take risks, however, it's doubtful we'll ever get to our Dream. "A lot of successful people are risk-takers," Phillip Adams wrote, "Unless you're willing to do that, to have a go, to fail miserably, and have another go, success won't happen."

There must be something risky between you and your Dream, otherwise, why wouldn't you be living it? Attaining dreams requires new behavior, and new behavior is taking a risk.

"Be daring, be different, be impractical," Sir Cecil Beaton advised, "be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary."

"There are risks and costs to a program of action," John F. Kennedy said, "but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction."

Of course, there are limits. Andy Warhol had a suggestion for Kennedy and his kind: "The president has so much good publicity potential that hasn't been exploited. He should just sit down one day and make a list of all the things that people are embarrassed to do that they shouldn't be embarrassed to do, and then do them all on television."

A great idea from Mr. Warhol. Unfortunately, none of our presidents have taken him up on it — not intentionally, at any rate.

The irony is that the person not taking risks feels the same amount of fear as the person who regularly takes risks. The non-risk-taker simply feels the same amount of fear over more trivial things.

Understand that failure is part of the process. We told you about our publishing successes, but have we told you about our failures? To quote Jack Benny, "Well!" They were something.

People not taking calculated risks, designed to pursue their Dream, sometimes take foolish risks. They drive too fast, drink too much, abuse drugs, or engage in some other reckless behavior. "Take calculated risks," George Patton advised, "That is quite different from being rash."

Maybe the risk-taking mechanism in these rash individuals needs to be exercised — or maybe they want to prove (to themselves as much as to others) that they're not so cowardly after all. If they really wanted to display their courage, all they'd have to do is pursue their dreams.

The reverse of that is more often true. Having given up on their dreams, many give up on life, and die a little more each day. As Benjamin Franklin wrote, "Some people die at twenty-five and aren't buried until they are seventy-five." Or, to quote Auntie Mame's famous line, "Life is a banquet, and some poor sons-of-bitches are starving to death."

The thing you fear: all you have to do is walk right up and confront it. It's among the hardest things to do, but it's the only thing to be done. If you turn from it, it will bite you in the butt. The farther you run from it, the farther you run from your Dream. "Do the thing you fear," wrote Emerson, "and the death of fear is certain."

"Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one's better abilities or ideas," Maxwell Maltz observed, "but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk — and to act."

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