Plans change. Your ability to adapt and change your plans is a key element to well being and to moving forward quickly. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow hasn’t come yet. 

Your plans need the flexibility to change as the present develops in front of you. Plans are nice to have until they no longer work due to new information or feedback. As Thomas J. Leonard said in his book The Portable Coach “You must be willing to hold [a] plan lightly, and learn – very quickly – as you go.”

People rarely change. It is a harsh reality, but one that you have probably been surprised by over and over again in your life. Watching as family members spend themselves into poverty, or friends sabotage themselves out of a fulfilled life. Sure, these actions can be modified to help them change their situation, but true change cannot happen unless it comes in the form of deep, internal, personal change. This is why it is hard (and rare) for people to change. 

All permanent change is internal.

Moving forward in life requires you to do both: be ready to change your plans and always be looking for ways to change yourself. Not because you want to change the outcome (a lot of it doesn’t depend on you anyway) or want to impress others (who at the end of the day really do not care), but because you want to learn to surprise yourself and keep growing.