So, What Makes a Good Plan B? Why Do They Work?
Well, having a backup isn’t that difficult to achieve. When you’re creating a plan whether it’s a study guide, an event or party, or just your daily life, you’re already coming up with multiple ideas. The plan you end up going with, is just the best one. This could be because it’s the most practical, or it’s just your favourite. But you’ll definitely have more than one option to choose from. Because of this, it makes sense to ensure that you’ve got a backup ready. You might not need it, but then again, who knows what could happen.
Like I’ve said, creating one plan, and coming up with ideas naturally leads to and encourages more ideas to form. Most people tend to base their plans off of two things: What will be the best outcome – or – What is the most convenient. When you’re coming up with these outcomes, alongside other possibilities, you’re organically evaluating all the routes and paths available to you, and if you’re able to do this successfully, you’ll be touching upon your analytical mindset. Life is full of hurdles that need jumping, problems that need solving, information that needs breaking down – and these difficulties can be found in all areas of life. Your analytical mindset can help solve these issues. Having an analytical mindset means you ask questions. You want to know ‘Why’ and ‘How’ things happen, to better prepare yourself and improve your knowledge overall. Having a plan B helps improve this. You naturally look at what can be done, assessing the likelihood against the outcome as well the difficulties that might come as a result. But this isn’t just the only helpful benefit of having a second plan.
Time is crucial when it comes to planning. Often plans that we make are heavily linked to the time that we have. I have to do this by then, if I spend an hour doing this, this will give me two hours to do that. You get the picture. Thing is, whilst a few lucky people will be very adept at making plans up on the spot, most of us don’t have this ability, we need to, and have to manage our time sensibly to get the most from it. If you’re plan A fails, because life throws a spanner in the works, and you don’t have a plan B, you might be a bit lost. Unsure where to go, and what to do. The time that you’re now spending hastily coming up with an alternative that’s neither thorough nor really wanted is just a waste of time. By assuming your first plan will fail, and thinking of a second plan to compensate, means that we can make the most of our time, and not end up wasting it when things don’t go the way we want.
And finally, planning gives you confidence. Just think for a moment, about the last time you were nervous about something. A test. Going somewhere. Meeting and talking to someone who could change your life. Whatever it is, think about it. Now think about whether you planned for it or not. Was there any thought that went into it? Or did you wing it? The chances are, if you felt nervous, and had zero confidence, then you probably didn’t plan, and if you did, it wasn’t the strongest. We as humans understand that in order to progress at any stage in life, in any area, then we need to move forward. When you’re confident, moving forward, getting over things, and becoming a better version of yourself can all be achieved. If you’re lacking in confidence, self-belief, it’s very easy to get stuck in the same place, and when that happens it can be even harder to get going again. When you plan, and you’ve got a clear vision, and this goes for however many plans you might have, you feel confident. You’ve got a path that you can take. Actions that need to be done. A goal that needs to be achieved. When you’re confident, life can be easier, and you can gain confidence through planning. The more plans, the better.