A Good Plan Today, Beats a Perfect Plan Tomorrow
Last night I watched one of my favorite movies of all time, The Edge, starring Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin. Despite the lackluster title, the movie is a very inspiring story of a small group of people who are trapped in the Canadian wilderness after a plane crash. As the layers are peeled away, greed, betrayal, and murder all come to the forefront, despite the dependency they have on one another just to survive.
One of the things that I particularly like about the movie, is that it contains many memorable one-liners that inspire and open the imagination to success and overcoming obstacles. One of the lines that struck me last night was from Alec Baldwin’s character:
A good plan today, is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.
Yep, that’s it. I know, there’s not much to it, but it immediately made me think of all the times I’ve procrastinated or put things off. Had I said this little line to myself, I may have actually followed through with what needed to be done right then.
Procrastination: The Enemy of Success
Seriously, how many good ideas have you had, but you never got around to putting into practice. I know I’ve had lot’s of’em. Unfortunately, I never even bothered writing them down……I always figured that I would just remember them since they were so brilliant. I’ve fooled myself many times. Truth is, I’ve put off so many things because I wanted to wait until I had “all my ducks in a row”, so to speak, before moving forward with an idea. That one little line just overcomes that mental objection.
Tomorrow Never Comes
What about you? Have any tricks up your sleave, to put your butt in motion? Does “waiting till later” keep you from doing things you know you should try?
Filed under: Goals, Motivation
I work in the area of software development so I deal with a lot of system, projects, products, and quite often ideas come to my mind about products I could do on my own or even start a company around some idea. Guess what, 2 days later I can’t remember what idea I had and how it was supposed to bring me my first million. But things changes after I’ve read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, and then Personal Power by Antony Robbins. They teached me writing all my ideas down. There is another good thing about it. If you heard about the law of attraction then you know what I mean. If you wrote down something and then come back to re-read it from time to time, things will start happening in your life that will help you realize those idea, or new ideas will shine. All you have to do is not to postpone it to the future but keep thinking what you can do about it today…
Yes, I completely agree. I’ve had the same experience before with ideas. Heck, I even do that with blog posts sometimes. Something will pop in my mind, and seem like the greatest idea, then I can’t remember it to save my life!
I have read both of the books you mentioned and am familiar with what the law of attraction is. I think keeping goals new and fresh in your mind guides you to subconsciously steer in that direction.
Thanks for the comment.
I agree 100% with this post. The term, “If I had a dollar….” comes to mind. I have however started writing my blog ideas down, on anything I can get my hands on at the time of the idea. Sometimes I follow through with them, sometimes I realize it’s not a great idea for a post.
Thanks for the response. I’ve tried lately to improve in this area. I like to keep something to write with all the time, just in case……and you’re right, sometimes what seemed like a great idea doesn’t seem so great once you actually sit down to write.