Failed Plans Don't Equal Failed People

​It was my plan. It didn't work. I'm a failure .

I'm not sure I've ever said those words out loud, but I've sure let them quietly speak to me. Sometimes a lot.

It's easy to forget that a plan is simply something that gets us from where we are to where we want to go. If that where is important to us - maybe we even feel called to be there - our plans become pretty important as well.

If we're not careful, the plan to get "there" can become bigger than the actual "there". This plan of how to get where we want to go - to become who we feel called to become - can start to define us more than the destination.

There are definitely times when a failed plan is a signal that we're headed in the wrong direction. Our "there" is all wrong. But more often than not, I think a failed plan simply means we chose the wrong way of getting where we're trying to go.

I wonder, though, how many people don't get to their own "there" because failed plans tell them they're a failed and flawed person and not a good person holding a bad plan? How many people forget their mission is to become the person they feel called to be and not the person who develops the can't miss plan to become her or him?

Not all bad plans are bad mistakes. Sometimes they are just bad plans. And believe me, some really good people can come up with some really bad plans.

I'm a bigger believer than ever that our emotions are far more often our enemies than they are our friends. They are far more often trying to convince us that there is something wrong with us instead of something out of alignment with our path or our plan.

Emotions are constantly trying to tell us we're not worthy of a new path - that we are incapable of coming up with one.

But we are all capable. If your "there" is big enough, if it's important enough, if you feel called enough to it - oh, you'll find a way to tell your emotions to step aside. You'll find a way to tell them that you're too busy to listen to them today - you're busy working on a new plan.