How is not important

In a lot of my previous work, I discuss plans and vision. There is talk, at length, about the fact that there needs to be a specific plan to get you from where you are to where you want to be. It is mentioned that without such a plan you are doomed to repeat all the things that you have done up until this point, for the rest of your life.

 From all this, one could easily get the impression that I believe you should be micromanaging every hour of every day and how it gets done. That how every single little thing gets done should be planned out ahead of time to the last detail. That there should be a vision of the way everything is done and that everything must be done exactly according to that vision.

This could not be farther from the truth. In fact such micro-management leads to insanity. It leads to a person becoming a completely obsessive control freak. Let me show you what I mean.

When I was younger, I lived under the thumb of my stepfather. From my perspective at least, I could never do anything to his satisfaction. And for a long time the things that happened simply boggled my mind.

He DID have an exact method by which he wanted everything done. My natural inclination was to do things by the simplest most efficient methods. We obviously grew up very differently because my way and his way were never the same. Doing things his way often seemed like the thing itself was a punishment. It would take longer, use more resources and quite often produce a lower quality result than the way that I was used to doing things.

I would do things my way. He would get mad at me and ask me why I didn't do things the way he wanted them done. But anything I responded with that wasn't me agreeing with him about his way being better either got ignored or got me disciplined.

Sometimes he would ask if I did what he asked and when I said I did, things seemed to be okay for awhile, until he queried whether or not I had done them his way. Then all hell would break loose. It was always his way or the highway, with no quarter given.

Let me ask you this. If your plan involves becoming the owner of a yacht, and a deceased relative wills you one just like the one you would have bought for yourself, should you sink it and go about getting the boat "your" way? Would you do that? Of course not. That would be insane.

You may intend to get wealthy by writing the next great American novel. But if what happens instead is a penny stock that you invested in suddenly becomes a Fortune 500 company and you find yourself swimming in money, why be upset about it? Just quit your job and enjoy the new freedom. If you want to, you can still invest the time and energy to become a bestselling author, but now you don't have to.

We all have a vision of the way things are going to be or the way they should be. But the bottom line is the result. As long as what you are doing is morally and legally sound, who cares how things get done? What matters is that it gets done and that you are happy with the quality of the result. Don't be attached to the image you have in your head of how things will happen. Because most of the time, that image is wrong.

Specific things do have to happen in order for your life to be the way you want it to be. Exactly how they happen is really not important. Let go of the image. Become attached to the results. Or as I like to say, function over form. Screw the details.