As I get down to write another post, I know I have to oblige my friends who are eagerly waiting for the NEXT post on “Tenacity” soon after “It is TENACITY, My Friend...” post.

Then, why this post?

In fact, what I am going to talk about today will set the stage for the much-wanted post on developing “Tenacity”.

I will no longer beat around the bush. Planning plays a key role in ensuring success.

But, let us first be clear about the purpose of planning. It is a human tendency to assume that if the planning is complete and the resulting plan is a good one (how do you know?!), things (as planned) are likely to go your way. 

It is this assumption that leads one to believe that it does not make sense to plan the events/actions/activities of one’s life when the run of the life is unpredictable. Yes, it does not make sense at all if you look forward to a fail-proof plan!

There has never been a plan that was fail-proof, nor will there ever be. 

And, I will put it this way – it is all the more imperative to plan when the turn of events is unpredictable.  

Plan while accepting this inevitable truth that you will have to change your plan. Thus, the purpose of planning is not to solely develop a good plan, but, it is to plan or re-plan to ensure your objectives are achieved even in the face of uncertainty!

What must you plan for? – Everything.

-          I am aware that too much of planning tends to kill spontaneity. However, those who achieved success through spontaneous demonstration of brilliance actually planned some or all aspects of their spontaneity!

What needs to be planned? – Time and Timing.

-          When you determine what you need to do (actions), plan those in the Time available and also plan the Timing of your actions.

When is your planning complete? – Never.

When your plan is called a “Good Plan”? – Only after you have achieved your goal on or before time!

Will something not go according to your plan? – Almost always. When that happens, make suitable changes to your plan.

More on planning later...

Remember: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

There are occasions when we regret missing an opportunity because we did not get a “heads-up” or a “tip-off” in time to take advantage of it. On most such occasions, a live person is more likely to give us the said “tip-off” than an event or a sign/symptom or an occurrence.

Who would this very desirable person be? This person could be our well-wisher or a friend. Haven’t you found asking yourself, ”Where are all the well-wishers gone?”.

Yes, you may not find them in abundance anymore. What devoured such divine creatures? They have all become the victims of the very pace of life that they chose to live in the first place. A careful introspection will reveal that you and I are also probably subjected to similar extinction from others' perspective.

So, is there a way to convert/nurture more/fresh well-wishers in our lives? Yes, there is. And, it is so simple. Be a well-wisher yourself. Very soon, you will have some growing around you.  

Let us now figure out the way it is implemented. All I ask you is to call/write one different/new contact out of your contact list on a regular basis. The idea is to regain touch with your acquaintance on any ground (preferably, with no agenda) and show your support (to any extent feasible).

It is possible that your acquaintance may be taken aback at first since such interactions are very rare in a highly competitive world. Your diligence should win them over. If your gesture is not taken in the correct spirit by your acquaintance, then you will have a reason not to harbour misconceived notions about that person, as it is. Oh, how easy you will make it for yourself!

Let us also dwell on what will make this touch a warm/genuine one. Your attempt of getting in touch with your acquaintance should be an honest effort.  For example, if in an attempt to maintain contact with your friends/acquaintances, you tend to share borrowed email content (email-chains or forwarded ready-made content), you are more likely to annoy your friends after a little while. I will not call it an honest attempt because before the email era, we never thought of maintaining/building our rapport by simply tearing some pages out of a magazine and posting them in an envelope to our friend(s)!

The technology has covered a lot of ground but we, human beings, are still a by-product of flesh and bones and have not yet evolved into robots/machines. By all means, use the power of technology to its fullest to get closer to the people you know, but please do not distort the concepts of “keeping in touch”.

The resulting camaraderie or bond will stand you in good stead at some stage in your life. The more number of people you continue to touch, the more is the probability of you being offered a scoop when you need it the most!

Having overcome the fear of failure (see my blog post “What would you do?” of Aug 15, 2009), it is equally important to realize that when we tend to push the envelope, failure is a very strong possibility in our initial attempts.

Could we do without failure at all? Ideally, failure is unwarranted.

Philosophically speaking, it is this very failure that makes the success so sweet. But it is not so easy to have an abstract viewpoint immediately following a failed attempt.

So, what do you do when you fail? Well, do yourself a favour by not suppressing your true feelings. It is essential and healthy to feel bad about the failure. That is the easiest way to fuel your motivation for another attempt.

Do not anticipate failure but do not rule out its occurrence altogether. Treat each failure as a ‘wake-up call’. It is an honest feedback of your shortcomings with reference to the goal(s) you set for yourself.

In some cases, the journey to a point of failure is actually a mark of achievement to a certain degree.  At the point where one fails to pass the driving test, there is actually a certain percentage of progress (30 or 60 or 80 percent) towards becoming a licensed driver. This realization helps in alleviating the frustration that comes from failure. It verifies that all your effort has not gone in vain.

Looking at an instance of failure as a ‘road travelled so far’ also helps in identifying the gap between the current capability or achievement and the desired one. Thus, when used objectively, failure works to your advantage, and evidently, helps you focus on bridging the gap.

In spite of preaching all positives about a failure, I do not want to instil in your mind that failure is essential for you to succeed. If you have not encountered failure so far, it is possible that, in most cases, you did not need that ‘wake-up call’.  This could mean that you identified and mitigated the risk of failure before it actually occurred.

Successful people make this tendency of pre-empting the crisis, a habit.

I will talk about one possible quintessence of success, which, ironically, is its opposite. 

Yes, I will talk about failure today.

Let us do an exercise. Repeatedly ask yourself a question until your conscience is prepared to answer it honestly, and when it is, listen to that answer intently.

And, the question is...”What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?” (This quote is attributed to Dr. Robert Schuller)

If your conscience comes up with a mind-boggling response; you have just made yourself realize your ability that resides in your unfettered inner self.

When we attempt perceivably difficult feats, we need not necessarily succeed the first time. Unfortunately, 99.9% of us do not cross the threshold of fear to even experience that initial failure.

The failure should only be an outcome of you not knowing how to do things the right way. It should never be a result of you apprehending failure before even attempting it.

The attempt becomes a reality when you are not inhibited by the thought of failing. Thereafter, it may take you more attempts than others, but success is guaranteed.

Do not forget that every repeated attempt needs you to ask yourself this same question with the same faith and intensity. Needless to say, it is more rewarding and less frustrating when we answer ourselves honestly.

I ask you again,

“What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”

When you hear yourself answering honestly, do it.

From my last post, I will continue to talk about the Time-Math. Having realized how Goal-Fitting can help us hone our skills by keeping time on our side, another technique, Goal-Seeking, can be applied to “seek” a desired outcome within the time available.

If we develop both short-term and long-term planning horizons, there is less likelihood of having to resort to the Goal-Seeking technique. Remember, we intend to plan to succeed. Planning ahead is preferable but, sometimes, in spite of our best efforts we find ourselves in a tight spot and are constrained for time.

So, assuming you have limited time and a definite effort (i.e., we know how much total time we need for the desired outcome), you may follow the following sequence of steps to apply the Goal-Seeking technique: -

1.       Determine the maximum amount of time (generally, in number of hours) you can devote to the desired activity(ies) on a daily basis.

2.       Calculate if the total effort will suffice to achieve the result/outcome by the given deadline. If not, deliberate on Step 1 again to make it feasible. In other words, innovate to spare more time for the effort, e.g., you may find more time than normal on Wednesday evenings and/or Friday mornings (hypothetically speaking). At the end of the re-calc exercise, if the total time available does not measure up to the total effort required, you may conclude that your goal is unrealistic. In other words, it might become impossible for you to make TIME your ally for the desired purpose.

3.       Assuming the calculation (in step 2) works out fine, follow your plan religiously (this is easier said than done, hence, see Step 4).

4.       Constantly work towards diluting the disruptions. This is how you do it: -

·         Try and over-achieve on a daily basis and notionally bank the hours (keep a record of these hours). This will stand you in good stead when, on a particular day, you lose time due to any reason.

·         Have a disruption-dilution plan in place. Assuming you do not have not any banked hours at your disposal, determine in advance the sacrifices you will be prepared to make and correspondingly, the number of additional hours you will be able to devote to bring the execution of your plan back to a state of normalcy.

Ideally, a sound plan should not have any element of the Goal-Seeking technique. And also realistically, once you get down to applying this technique, it is not as easy to implement as it appears mathematically.

There are occasions when you may need to apply this technique to achieve the desired result. For example, on a bigger scale (when the goal is not too personal to you), you may resort to getting help from others, delegation etc. to meet the deadline.

Note that very few people have tasted true success using only the Goal-Seeking technique. The Goal-Fitting technique is a better way to make TIME your ally. You may initially have to apply the Goal-Seeking technique to get into the Goal-Fitting mode, and the sooner you do it, the better it bodes for your success in future!

I will talk about time today. Almost all high-achievers plan to get time on their side when they plan their journey to success. Time proves to be our biggest ally in the arduous path to our goal. And, when on our side, it never lets us down!

Make sure you keep time aside and devote it to your purpose regularly. It is this regular acknowledgement of time that turns into a winning formula almost at all times!

Time-Math is very strong and produces amazing results. And the two methods to apply this math are: -

·         Goal-Fitting Method

·         Goal-Seeking Method

Goal-Fitting Method: Let us say you are planning for the next 12 months. You decide that you can easily spare one hour a day on work days to devote to self-improvement initiatives. Since you are likely to get approximately 246 work days in a year, you will have 246 planning hours available at your disposal. You can now use your discretion to fit activities leading to not one, but multiple self-improvement goals in those 246 hours. All that you did was to acknowledge just one hour of your work day. Imagine a person who inculcated this habit and continued doing it for say, 20 years – that’s almost 5000 hours! Now imagine the difference between two persons after 20 years where one chose to learn to dance and the other did not even acknowledge that one hour of his/her work day. 5000 hours is a difference between a professional dancer and a non-dancer! You must remember, none of those two set out with a goal to become a professional dancer.  

Those who have perfected time-math have turned out to be masters of multiple skills, and the casual observers often make the mistake of calling them “gifted” or “exceptionally talented”.  By doing so, they like to resign to a belief that it is beyond their means to achieve such excellence.

But, here is a living proof. One of my very dear friends, who is also my batch mate from NDA (National Defence Academy), holds the distinction of flying 22 different types of aircraft in his flying career of almost 24 years(when I last checked earlier this year)! Beat it if you can!!  It is very likely that among all other techniques he must have employed, time-math has played a significant role in his success.

But, remember, there are exceptions that almost go hand-in-hand and the time-math does not work well with those: -

1.       Do not apply time-math to count the number of hours “wasted” or “taken away from productive work” while you are on vacation. This is because for best results, your body needs to recoup unconditionally.

2.       Do not apply time-math to more than reasonable number of hours since it will prove counter-productive.

Sometimes, to meet exceptional pressing demands in one’s life, one may have to apply time-math to the extremes. Well, such occasions will call for mastering techniques of overcoming protracted fatigue and monotony. I will talk about those some other day.

I will talk about the Goal-Seeking Method in my next post. Until then, make a promise to yourself to get time on your side!

Good news! The blog is on its way to take its first stride. I thank my friends and colleagues for an encouraging response to my opening post aka “What is this blog about?”.  In all, everyone is excited about its underlying purpose. The emails poured in with words of agreement and advice. I am sure that the reader support will only grow with time.

And, very soon, this blog will thrive on readers helping readers!

I must admit that some of my posts will be déjà vu for those who happened to implement similar, or probably, a better technique in their life. But I will talk about such techniques anyway. I feel that we also owe it to the next generation to share our experiences and learning, even at the cost of repetition.

Let us fixate on our respective “Gold Medals”, and then make the right and intense effort to go for the gold without any malicious intent towards anyone.  

Over the years, having lived with high-achievers in my personal and professional life, I have observed a pattern in the mindset of those who excel in almost everything they undertake.

We are now going to explore the secret but coveted world of those who got their “gold” once, and, then never let go of this habit.  

Expect philosophy, instances, methods and suggestions very specific to different fields of work, initiatives and undertakings. The blog postings will suggest a solution or a framework either aimed to trigger action or to agitate you enough to find a better solution instead.

You may not entirely agree with the me all the time. Even if my blog barely so much as sets you on a path to find a solution from your perspective, it will have served its purpose!

After all, the idea is, that you Go, Get Your “Gold Medal”!!