Plan ahead but keep ideas open to change

No matter how hard you try to plan ahead and control the details of your business and career, it will not turn out exactly as you had imagined.

Come to think of it, that is not a bad thing.

I pride myself in being organised and to have yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily goals planned ahead for my writing and my career.

I write my business articles weeks in advance and plan my job’s tasks and goals at the beginning of every month. That way I have a clear vision of where I am headed and how much time I have left to achieve my goals.

That is not to say my life is spontaneity free. I leave room for unexpected turnarounds that I would face along the way.

Every time I look back, I realise it is those turnarounds that make my career exciting and could open up opportunities that would take my business and career to somewhere better than I had imagined.

When I meet successful people, one of the questions I love to ask them is if they had always envisioned being where they are today. Many of them laugh and say they never imagined to be working in a certain field, that they had different plans but life surprised them with something unexpected.

I recently met my cousin; a sophomore architecture student and we discussed this topic. Ever since she was young, she wanted to be a heart surgeon.

She could not imagine herself majoring in anything else. The college she applied for had a limited number of places and she could not get into medicine.

She enrolled in the design school and majored in architecture. Two years have passed, and now she loves what she is studying.

She discovered it really suits her personality and she does not think about becoming a surgeon anymore, saying she would be better at architectural design instead.

When I shed a light on my life in the past three years, I would have never imagined being where I am today.

I had a different outlook planned. I knew I wanted to be successful, to have this and that, but there are always unexpected twists and details that could not be anticipated no matter how hard I planned ahead.

That is why, in addition to being organised and to pre-plan my goals, I also adopted an open attitude, where I accept to go with the flow and be open to new ideas and unexpected events. Having an open mindset aids you against shocks and surprises; that when something unexpected happens, or your business takes a different turn, you do not stress or dwell on the change instead of moving along with it.

A friend of mine decided to adopt the go with the flow attitude altogether and dump planning ahead.

Her business was evolving at a very fast rate that she thought planning ahead would be pointless in her case.

Now, she lives her life day by day. Our other friends stood against her new adopted way and strongly believed that it would backfire on her.

Who is right in the situation?

I could not say she is. Her attitude is working well with her business. In addition, too much planning and tight control on your business flow might not stand solid against some unexpected twists and turns.

Tight control and not leaving any room to stray a little bit off the planned route could backfire on your business.

That is why I believe it is best to be somewhere in the middle, to have an organised plan, set yearly goals for your career and business but to leave some room for surprises that could turn your goals around.

It is important to keep in mind that changes to our planned goals is not necessarily a bad thing, that it could open a door leading to a path we did not plan on taking, one which could make us more successful than we thought we would be.

The truth is this; business just like life is full of surprises.

Adopting an open mindset and leaving room for surprises will aid you in your business and career.

Manar al Hinai is an award-winning Emirati writer based in Abu Dhabi. Follow her on Twitter: @manar_alhinai