4 CHARACTERISTICS OF A PLAN YOU MUST KNOW.

Over time I have developed great interest for the sports of soccer and boxing. I have watched them enough to understand one of their ‘golden rules’. How do one move from the state of depression to the state of motivation as fast as possible and how can one apply this rule to individual life situations?

I have seen football teams losing out in crucial games for underrating the importance of this rule. I have also seen boxers kiss their canvasses for disobeying this rule and more pitifully, I have seen several people miss-out in life for this same reason (ignoring the ‘golden rule’).

“You are not on the pitch/in the ring to CHANGE the plan, you are on the pitch/in the ring to FOLLOW it no matter what!”

It is like being on a journey from point A to point B.  If one experiences a flat tire or a little accident for example, what you do is fix the problem and get back to the road (the road map you’ve previously read for the journey; the plan) and not to change the route.

Contrary to what most of us watching these games think and wrongly assume, once a team is down by two or three goals or once a boxer misses his steps and hits the ground, then it is time to change the strategy, style and even the plan as a whole. This is why we yell and complain if the players/ the boxer maintain the same pattern and style and ultimately stick to the plan--- we do this because we do not seem to understand the nature/characteristics of a plan.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A PLAN

1.       A good plan takes quality time to create

This is a time that obviously cannot be gotten from the time stated for the game. It is a time that requires critical thinking and enormous mental energy both of which it is impossible to achieve while the game is on. “Give me 6 hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe”- Abraham Lincoln. The first four hours is the planning time and it determines how the game goes.

2.       Plans are created to be followed to the end.

 All plans are winning plan; no good plan is designed to lose and because no one plan can be 100% followed, winning is measured by how accurately the plan is followed. Also attempts to switch from the plan either while winning or losing mostly turns disastrous because it results to exposing weaknesses.

3.       No plan is 100% faultless

Most times, our plans look perfect before the game or life situation until the end of the game or the life situation when weaknesses are spotted. This is why there is no one perfect plan thus every plan has a room for continuous improvement.

4.       A plan is a regulator:

A plan, among all other functions serves as a regulator between the highest and lowest   emotions an activity or an occurrence can take one through. There is no doubt that there will be emotional swings in the course of an activity (game), a plan is what brings one’s emotions back to a regulated position which is best to succeed in the activity (game).

A greater percentage of people lost in games and in life for not mastering Plan Characteristics.