Overwhelmed by planning?

[foundpoem]

Does anyone else find themselves overwhelmed by the mere process of goal-planning? I frequently get very anxious about it, which is a terrible attitude to project onto what I what to manifest for the future.

I'm a very ambitious person with substantial goals in many different areas of life. I've never been able to complete a large-scale envisioning process resulting in a workable plan for how to get to where I want to be.

If I can't even plan it, I won't be able to do much, if any, of it. I don't know how to counteract this. It's sinking my PD.

[Dharma]

Are you wanting to "get it right" (the plan) before you start?

Are there other things you'd like in the plan but are left out because they somehow don't fit?

Those two would cause anxiety in me.

[foundpoem]

Hmm, no to the first question. I'm trying to use the plan to give structure to what I'm already doing. But there are so many things--many of them really essential, foundational elements--that just get completely lost. If I feel overwhelmed just in drawing up the plans, they aren't something I can get myself to look at every day, which makes them....not quite useless, but not terribly useful, either.

And "not usually" to the second question. I'm good at organizing information. But since I find planning so daunting, I end up with multiple partial plans written up in different places, and they repeat themselves.

I find planning discouraging more often than not, and I know I have to change how I feel about in addition to how I go about it. It's just not working as it is.

I appreciate your taking the time to respond.

Edited to add: I guess part of the problem is that I'm guilty of this: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...id-to-execute/
But it feels like anything I come up with would be next to impossible for me personally. That makes it hard to maintain constructive motivation.

[timmymayes]

I'm in the same boat. I decided to face my fear and got ActionOutline and The Journal at Steve's recommendation and then belted most of my planning out in a couple of days using these articles as resources.

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...e-on-planning/
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...-solving-tool/
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...planning-time/
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...amic-planning/

The approach I took was to go to my journal and just start pouring out my dreams onto the paper. What were my dreams? My aspirations? In other words when you day dream what do you day dream about?

For me one of the big ones is to become a pro poker player in vegas. Luckily I have a like minded friend so we had planned a 3 month trip for next year. This is great but now comes the how do I get there? The best way to find a solution is to envision your self already there, sorta like intent manifestation in a way, you gotta first dream what you want? where do you live? what do you wear? who do you talk to? Answering those questions will help you to figure out what you want, even if you're like me and don't know your purpose you can at least figure out what will make you happy. To give you an example I envision my self out in vegas wearing cargo shorts and a t-shirt and flip flops enjoying my afternoons playing golf, the early evening playing poker and at night maybe out to eat at some fancy resturants or grilling out with my friends.

Now I know what I want. Once your mind knows the destination its really good at connecting the dots to give you a solution. The questions to ask now are What do I need to accomplish this, what are its miniimum requierments if you will. For me I thought about it and for living expenses I figure about 3k and for the limit I want to play at I will need 20k. I'm also gonna need a great poker mind. Now I have projects; Save 20k for a bankroll, Save 3k for expenses, Learn as much as I can about poker.

You don't want to plan too far ahead so usually try to figure out the next 3 months, I went six because its very close to my departure date and that way I feel I have more control over my situation. So for those 90 days you need to detail the specifics of how you are going to accomplish the said goals. Example time. I'll lump my first two goals together since that money is all going with me anyway, Save 23k. In six months saving 20k is going to be tough to do considering I make 7.50 an hour. However I'm lucky to live at home so the first two months are dedicated to gaining a skill, for me C# programming. My friend who will be taking the trip with me is a Developer for a locally based bank and will give me a refferal for a job there. From here I set a goal of how much I will save each month. I decided to start off slow as I'm working part time while I get the certification so I set it up like this:
Month 1: $800
Month 2: $2000
Month 3: $4000
Month 4: $5000
Month 5: $5000
Month 6: $3200

Setting up my bigger money months in the middle so I can make up for it if need be on month 6.

My second project, learn as much as I can about poker kind of overlaps with the previous one. I will use the early savings as a bankroll to play poker in a local casino giving me more experience. I also plan on reading 1 book a week on the subject.

Then you break it down the first 30 days of that 90 days more specifically, You dont want to get ahead of your self and detail out all 90 days as you might not be where you expected in a specific area. I'm not gonna go into the specifics as this post is long enough already. Some keys though are to keep your lists in specific actions not general. "Excerise an hour a day" is ok but "Run 3 miles every morning" or "Do 3 sets of 200 lbs Bench presses" as it outlines a specific action and is easily measured if you completed that action or not.

I really hope this helps because I was stuck at the same stumbling block doomed to fail my attempts time and time again.

Cheers,
Timothy

[foundpoem]

Thank you, Timothy, for such a long and thoughtful response. Let me clarify my situation a bit: I don't have any trouble coming up with goals--if anything, I have the opposite problem of coming up with too many. And I don't have trouble breaking them down into what seem like reasonable, actionable steps. Again, if anything, I tend to imagine too many different feasible paths to similar goals.

My difficulty lies in the fact that I find the whole process of goal-planning to be emotionally exhausting. It can have its exhilarating moments, but overall, I'm left feeling like I'm trying to lift a thousand pounds. And that's before I take any actions other than writing a few of them out.

I've been working at PD for some years now--my whole life, really--and the results are deeply discouraging to me. I guess the real issue I'm dealing with is one of burnout.

I don't know what to do. But I am getting a better sense of what the root problems are, so thanks again to everyone for dialoging with me.

[timmymayes]

Ah I see, I guess I'm not gonna have an answer for you then as I find the process quite inspirational and invigorating. Perhaps it comes down to how you truly feel about your goals? Have you found your purpose?

Cheers,
Timothy

[foundpoem]

I don't feel that I've defined my purpose (again, I've tried, and found it overwhelming). I do have plenty of goals that are in line with my values, though, and I am making good progress on a few of them. But are they the right goals, the best uses of my time? Not really (though at least some of them tend to make me happy in the short run). I look at where my actions are likely to take me over time, and I don't see how I can ever get all the way to where I would want to be.

At times I do find the goal-setting process inspiring, but I think I overdo it. It's a roller coaster. Once a large degree of what I'll call "burnout energy" gets injected into the plans and the goals themselves, I don't want to look at them, because doing pulls me down. "Look, more failures."

The more I write about this, the more I wonder if it belongs in the Emotional Mastery forum.

[geekchic9]

It seems like you're not quite in the Reason state of consciousness.

You said this:

"But are they the right goals, the best uses of my time? Not really"

According to Steve, the Reason state of consciousness is this:

"You now have the discipline and the proactivity to fully exploit your natural abilities. You’ve reached the point where you say, “Wow. I can do all this stuff, and I know I must put it to good use. So what’s the best use of my talents?” You take a look around the world and start making meaningful contributions."

In fact, you remind me of how I viewed myself at one point: Too good at too many things and having too many interests. The following is probably not what you want to hear, but I speak from experience: Your purpose will find you when you least expect it. Your cause will leap out at you one day and smack you in the face. And you will realize that all the things you have been doing have not been wasted. In fact, everything you've done in your life will prepare you for this moment.

My question for you is: Will you choose to accept it? Before you automatically respond, "Of course!", think for a second: No one can really have really more than one true cause or have more than one complete purpose. You will have to choose something over something else that could have been. You don't sound ready to make that decision yet, but I have a feeling that one day, you will. And then you will be wondering how you struggled all this time when it was right in front of your face. Just speaking from experience.

[timmymayes]

I seriously recommend you read "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill