During my years coaching entrepreneurs and business executives, I’ve witnessed many plans get “derailed” by some unforeseen incident—the loss of an essential team member, an unexpected market shift, a changing economic climate, and so on. But with a little work and some mindset shifts, the people who experienced these “crises” were able to overcome their obstacles and get back on track to where they wanted to be.
That’s because planning is a process. It’s a process that includes much more than the initial work of establishing a plan with concrete goals and action steps—in fact, I often make the argument that most of what business owners do in their daily lives is some part of the planning process.
And one of the most important parts of that process is dealing with things that go wrong. We take this for granted in many other areas of our lives: if it’s raining on the day we scheduled the picnic, we reschedule the picnic or move it indoors. If we don’t like the soup of the day, we order the salad.
In our businesses, though, we often view upset plans as almost devastating events—and understandably so. If you have a plan to reach certain revenue goals, and you have your other expenses in place based on those revenues, not meeting the mark can be pretty scary.
But keeping a clear head and learning how to adjust plans as you go is essential to the long-term health of your business (and your mental state!).
To avoid feeling overwhelmed the next time one of your plans gets derailed by something unexpected, try following these steps:
- Check in on progress periodically. You won’t be bowled over by unsatisfying numbers at the end of the quarter if you’ve been checking on them weekly or monthly. Remember that part of the planning process is making small adjustments to your operations along the way to ensure that you’re still on track to meet your goals.
- Plan for adjustments. So that you don’t become too busy to check in on your plan’s progress, schedule checkups the way you would any other meeting. Be clear with your team members about their role in helping you get a realistic idea of what’s working and what’s not, so you can modify your operations as you go.
- Accept imperfection. Nothing works out perfectly. Nothing. You’ll find that it’s much more efficient to spend your energy dealing with and adjusting for things that go wrong, rather than blaming yourself or members of your team for failing to foresee the roadblocks that inevitably occur.
The bottom line here is that plans are essential to effective businesses, but plans are not static objects to be admired but never touched. Think of “planning” only in its verb form, and you’ll find yourself better able to handle whatever comes your way!
