It’s great to go with the flow of course, but a little advance planning goes a long way to keep us stress free. Preparation along with flexibility saves a lot of time, energy in the long run.

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“It doesn’t have to be in your nature to be a planner, but it’s a very, very good skill to develop. A little bit of advanced planning makes a huge difference in helping to make your journey a lot more easy, a lot more graceful.”

Susmitha Veganosaurus – The Feel Good Factor Podcast

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Transcript: A little planning (with flexibility) makes a world of difference

(gently edited for a better reading experience)

Hello again, gang. I’m still travelling. I’ll be back home by next week’s episode, but right now because I’m still travelling, you’re getting one more raw, unedited episode. That means you have to put up with some “ums” and “ahhs”, and not the best sound quality. I promise I’ll keep the episode short again.

I want to talk about something really important. I mean, this is something we all know, it’s pretty obvious.

The importance of planning and preparation

On this trip I’ve seen live for myself what happens when you are prepared, and when you aren’t. When you have some amount of planning, and when you have zero planning. And this is something I’ve seen of my own self, my experience, as well as people around me, other travellers who’re staying at this particular location I’m at now.

I’m a big believer of going with the flow, and everything will work out for the highest good

Things will fall into place, you’re always taken care of. Yes. Big on all of that. This is something I truly believe, and I speak about it also.

But I did realise that when you’re prepared, when you’ve planned to some extent at least, then you position yourself well. In the last minute you aren’t floundering, you know. If you’re unprepared and you’re leaving everything to the last minute, or rushing from place to place without really thinking things through in advance, then you get into stressful situations.

There’s anxiety created. You may even forget things which are important. Things you shouldn’t be forgetting. So you’ll miss out on a lot when you’re just rushing from place to place, going through your days with zero planning and advanced preparation.

It helps when you have even a little bit of preparation, just a little bit of forethought before you start out your day, or in this case, before you start out your trip. Just a bit of forethought, maybe booking a few things in advance.

Not a lot of it…

Not making it super planned because plans don’t always work out

So you don’t want to stress with it. The plan shouldn’t be a cause of stress to you. But in a relaxed way. Some basic things if you plan in advance, like say, checking in to your flight before you get out of your house, or booking your cab to your stay place at your final location.

Or if you’re going to attend an event or a workshop, finding out in advance exactly the place you need to go to. These little things make a big difference. Huge difference!

They seem small. They seem like, “it’s okay I’ll just do it. As things come I’ll face them, and things will fall into place.” But when you do plan, and when you do get your ducks in a row so to say, if you do that, then you avoid a lot of unnecessary stress and anxiety.

And who doesn’t want to avoid unnecessary stress?

You want to be able to be free. And you want things to flow smoothly.

Of course once you have planned things, if things don’t work out according to your plan, then you don’t stress out, you know. You let it go. It’s okay. Then you go with the flow. Of course you go with the flow.

When you plan in advance, you position yourself so that you are at an advantage always

You know, we say some people are lucky, some aren’t. Things work out smoothly for a few people. For a few others, they don’t.

More than luck, it’s preparation. Because when you’re prepared, then when certain choices come in front of you, when certain opportunities come in front of you, you are in a better position to make clearer decisions, and quick decisions.

And you can choose, “okay, I want to do this, but I don’t want to do that.” Even as simple as, “I’ll take this route versus that route.”

Just ask directions in advance before you step out of your place. Just that’s gonna help you, you know.

So when you reach a certain point, you’ll be able to make decisions quite easily

For example, I was going to this Buddhist meditation centre. We had this one morning meditation. Morning as in not very early in the morning, it was suitable for me to an extent, so I wanted to try it out.

I’d heard good things about this place. I visited the place a few days before the day I wanted to attend a meditation session. We’d gone there in the afternoon and it was so beautiful. So we just walked around the place and explored for a while.

Before leaving from there I had this thought. I’m like, “This is a huge place. So where exactly in the centre does the morning meditation happen? In which hall?” And I wanted to check.

I wanted to actually go to the office and ask, and my friend who was with me was like, “It’s okay you’ll know you know when you come. When you arrive on the day other people also will be going there so you’ll figure it out.”

But just to be safe I went into the office and found out. I said, “exactly where in this place, in this centre does the meditation happen?”

And lo and behold, on the day of the meditation, I woke up, got ready, rushed and… I mean, though it was not early in the morning, it was still morning, so it took a bit of effort on my part to get out of my room and walk up to that place.

It was about maybe 10-15 minutes walk away, and I rushed and reached in the very last moment. And thankfully, because I knew exactly where the meditation was happening, I didn’t look left-right, I went straight. I made a beeline right to the hall.

And yes, I did meet other people who were heading there, but not a lot. It was not as big a crowd as I’d imagined because most of the crowd was already in the hall. So because I knew the place, I had confidence.

If nothing else, it kept me less anxious, even when I was rushing in at the last moment

And this of course comes from knowing myself very well. Yes, there are some things I do in the last minute. So that’s why advance preparation is needed. You know, “know thyself”. Haha

But it was a big difference to me when I walked into the meditation. It hadn’t started yet, of course I didn’t want to go late and disturb them, but it was just about to begin and I was there correctly in time.

I went in, found the seats, sat down, and then the person started the meditation session. It was really nice. And I was able to smoothly enter into the state of being calm and centred, even though I had rushed and come late, because the advanced preparation, that little bit of planning and knowledge that I had, kept me stress free even though I was rushing to the place.

So that’s how in small ways preparation matters

At the same time I’ve seen others who didn’t plan at all. They’re like, “oh, I’ll go with the flow.” And here the weather is very unpredictable. It’s been raining off and on, unseasonal rains. I didn’t expect it to be so cold and rainy.

But anyway, I know of people who didn’t plan and then they just randomly floundered, went to some other place, got lost, and you know, had to come back in the dark.

And of course, things worked out for them too, right? Because things do work out and everything goes with the flow. You can go with the flow, but at the same time, the person who went through that, though they reached back safely ultimately, they were stressed, and they were tired. And that sucked out the energy from them.

That’s the difference between planning and not. It doesn’t mean that just because you don’t plan, things won’t work. Because things do work out. If you have faith, if you have trust, you are protected. The universe is there for you.

But with preparation, you’re sparing yourself anxiety, stress, energy drain, tiredness, and unnecessary work

Because if you’re not prepared, then yes you flounder. And you end up doing extra work, or probably taking these detours that you don’t need to if you had planned in advance.

So yeah, I just wanted to share this if you’re a procrastinator like I am, and if you’re not really much into planning.

It doesn’t have to be in your nature to be a planner, but it’s a very, very good skill to develop

And only to some extent, not to the point of perfection, and not being rigid with your plans and expecting everything to go the exact way that you had pre-planned. Definitely not that way.

You’re not trying to control it, but just being a little prepared. Just plan a bit, put in a little bit of effort into that, and over time it becomes easier. It actually becomes a habit. And then you’ll automatically start planning, and it will seem effortless to prepare and to plan.

This is an example. Whatever I’ve shared with you is based on on my travelling. But in any facet of life, whether it’s running a business, or working on a certain project, or running your home and your kitchen, or things like that, whatever it is…

A little bit of advanced planning makes a huge difference in helping to make your journey a lot more easy, a lot more graceful

Of course then you get to be curious and have fun on the way because you aren’t stressed out all along.

All right. Catch you again next week.

And if this is your first time here, I’m Susmitha Veganosaurus. You’re listening to The Feel Good Factor podcast. If you like this episode, then you’re surely gonna enjoy my free newsletter, The Feel Good Tribe (subscribe here).

I send out emails once or twice a month with lots of conversational stories, and tips and tricks, and all kinds of stuff. So yeah, I look forward to having you on The Feel Good Tribe. Talk to you again soon. Take care, bye.

Transcribed using Otter