Monday, February 24, 2014

Everyone should have a plan

Over the weekend I was conducting couple of sessions for professional students on "Individual Development Plan". I was amazed as to the number of people not having an individual development plan. 

Come to think of it, many people spend much more time in planning and strategising  purchasing assets such as selecting a motorbike or a car (sometimes even clothes!!!) Even a weekend trip takes lot more planning. 

Here's the thing. Imagine you want to build a house. Anyone with a proper sense knows the process starts with finding a good architect, sharing your requirement and getting the architect to draw up a plan. You would provide feedback to him, make alterations to fine-tune the plan according to your liking. Only then you think of building the house. 

Lot of people tend to take this aspect for granted when it comes to their 'lives', probably the most important plan one would ever make! Most approach this all important task in the most hap hazard and casual manner.  Some allow it the fate. Most tend to have a vague idea as to what they want to achieve of course with minimum clarity. If you ask them they'll probably say they want to be a "CEO", "a manager","a  doctor" etc. Beyond that they rarely have a plan to achieve it. 

This is absolutely disastrous. It's almost like building a house without an architecturally drawn up plan. Surely one will end up with a building. But it will never be a proper home. What amazes me most is the number of people who approach life without any proper plan. That number is a lot more than what we think. 

Even those who have drawn up a plan have drawn that up several years ago with no active monitoring and revising the plan on continuous basis. 

Here's the thing. Simply having a plan will put you with top 5% of the people in the world. But just like any corporate plan if you work on it without actively reviewing it you'll end up somewhere totally different than your intended destination. Plans should be reviewed on regular basis. At least several times a year if not on monthly basis. Just like corporate plans become irrelevant based on external environmental changes (which by the way happens all the time and much more frequently than before) personal plans too become irrelevant over time. After all who said individuals are immune to market volatility! 





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