WHY PLANNING IS IMPORTANT IN LIFE?

Planning is literally the only way we ordinary humans can prepare for what the future will throw at us. A wise man once said; “Make hay while the sun shines”, in fact, practically all cultures have proverbs that indicates why planning is very important in life. The Igbo tribe in Nigeria say; “A man should start looking for his black goat in daytime”. This means a lot because even our forefathers understood the importance of preparation.

When you don’t plan properly, you are like a sheet of paper in a wind storm; the blustery weather will blow you about; if you don’t plan your life, it will kick you around like that shit of paper in the storm.

Therefore, I feel compelled to put in writing the benefits of planning your life out. I am very aware that some people love spontaneity and don’t want to live on a time table. However; you surely want to be secured by a pension scheme for when you retire.

If you are wealthy enough, you might want to set up a trust fund for your children. Life is fairly unpredictable and if you aren’t getting younger, a life insurance policy would be considered. Whatever the case, everybody is making plans without even knowing it, but how do you make more intent and objective plans for your future?

 1.     Financial Security

Those jobs or contracts might not always be there. It is very important to keep some money aside for the rainy days, because trust me they will come. I want you to be honest with yourself, if hypothetically something happened and you find yourself in a tight corner financially; let’s assume you lost your job today. Would it be a situation of feeding from hand to mouth for your family going forward or you have enough to stay afloat till you get another job or revive your business? Whatever you conclude within yourself, don’t lose hope or panic. Your situation is definitely not the first one but to be on a safe side, you could start now to begin saving up some money from your earnings no matter how small it is. One day, it would come in very handy, trust me.

 2.     Time Management 

When you plan and schedule properly, you don’t make silly mistakes and make your loved ones believe you don’t love them as much. You can plan your time by using the old school method of writing notes and sticking them to your fridge, or you can use the more modern method of setting notes and alarms on your phone.

Whatever you do, make sure you always plan quality time with family. A wise man once said that family is everything and there is no excuse for not providing time for them. As adults, it is normal and only human of us to forget certain things, but there are various means to set reminders on your smart phone for such a situation.

 3.     It Gives You More Control Over Your Life

I know I said this before but I feel compelled to stress it. You will agree with me that if you don’t plan, every morning would be a potential drama. You might get the dress drama, then no water drama if you live in an apartment with neighbors, or you might have kids’ drama if you are married with children.

All these dramas are usually as a result of lack of planning. What if you could plan your dressing for each day of the week on a Sunday evening. You could even make it fun by inviting a loved one to come help you pick out suitable clothes from your closet. This will save you the hassle of having to wake up and plan an outfit before eight.

So, you need to prepare breakfast early enough for your husband and kids before they go to work and school respectively. First of all, you need to start making plans before hand, preferably the day before. Once you are able to partially organize a meal for your family the day before everybody has to be at various places early. You now have two less things to worry about in the morning.

Having a plan to some degree gives you control over your life. Even though you might not be the one controlling the waves, you are at least the captain of your ship. You need to take control of your life and the only way to do that is by planning ahead.

 4.     Risk Management

Life is all about taking risks. You can’t say you have fully existed until you have lived on the edge a little. After a man climbed Kilimanjaro, he claimed he had never felt so alive before. This was very inspiring but I something came to my mind and I couldn’t shove the thought away. This young man was just thirty five and had two daughters; age seven and six. So, I pondered. If by chance a serious accident occurs and this young man becomes incapacitated, what would become of his wife and daughters?  Then I decided to check out various options his family could use to keep getting income to support and train the children through college.

Life insurance policy is a great, great plan if you are someone who loves to live on the edge. Nobody is asking you to stop trying to climb the Mount Everest, or jump out of a plane with parachutes or wander into the jungle on your own in search of the wonderful feeling of having stared death in the eyes.

And while doing all that, have you considered that anything could happen and its best to prepare for the worse. Getting Life insurance shouldn’t seem like an awkward thing to do. Recently, I was reading up on how a family can cope without the major breadwinner in the family, I found out that most families that were left with life insurance policies by their breadwinners end up being very stable financially moving forward.

Then again it’s not only life insurance policies, but there are various other insurance you can take to help minimize the effects of a catastrophe.

 5.     It Gives You Motivation   

Nothing gives more motivation than purpose, and nothing gives more purpose than plans. When you have plans, you have purpose and purpose is what motivates us to get up from bed on Monday mornings. When you have plans to purchase a new car by the end of the year, you have purpose and that purpose is what you are living for till you finally get that car.

Making plans are a good way to stay motivated in a world where there are very few things to be motivated about. 

6.     It Helps to Make Priorities Obvious

One of the reasons why relationships fail is due to conflicting notions on what is supposed to be the priority. However, when take your time to actually plan, you would be able to point out what you see as a priority.

During the planning process, you will get to notice priorities and place them above other options. This is the concept of scale of preference; it is when you put some options above others based on your need for them.

Let’s say you want to get a new computer, however, your rent is about to expire and your landlord will be on your neck once it does. I guess your house rent will be your first priority and then maybe later you can start thinking about that new computer.

Generally, planning will set your priorities straight. No matter how goofy it may seem, you need to write down some of the stuffs you have to do before a certain period of time then scale them according to their importance. The less important tasks should go down on the list, and the all more important tasks should go up.

Author Bio - 

Abimbola Joseph is a creative content developer at Explicit Success who derives pleasure in encouraging individuals to be the best they can be in all relevant facets of life. She believes that we all have a better version of ourselves which can be leveraged to impact others and make the world a better place. You can also connect with her on Instagram @abimbolajoe.