Set To Fail: The Problem with Perfect Plans
Thought For The Week
We decide we're going to exercise four times a week, cook more meals from scratch, stop snacking in the evenings, or follow a particular way of eating.
For a while, it might go well.
Then work gets busy. We sleep badly. Plans change. We miss a workout, order a takeaway, eat the thing we'd decided we weren't going to eat. And almost immediately, we start drawing conclusions.
I knew I wouldn't stick to it.
I just need to be more disciplined.
I was doing so well, and then I messed it up.
But there's an assumption inside those conclusions: that the standard we set ourselves was reasonable in the first place.
We rarely seem to question that part.
Instead, we make plans for a strangely fictional version of ourselves. One who wakes up with roughly the same amount of energy every morning. Whose weeks unfold as expected. Who always has enough time, never gets ill, never receives an unexpected invitation and never reaches the end of a difficult day wanting the easiest possible option.
Then, when real life fails to resemble the life we planned for, we blame ourselves for not being the person the plan required.
Perhaps we've been evaluating the wrong thing.
Instead of hoping for life to run smoothly, perhaps we should consider what happens when it doesn't. Does our plan have enough room for busy weeks, holidays, illnesses and periods of lower motivation?
That doesn't mean making our goals less ambitious or avoiding challenge. It means recognising that flexibility is something a sustainable plan needs from the start.
So the next time you find yourself thinking that you've failed to stick to something, it might be worth turning the question around:
Was the plan ever designed to succeed in real life?
Exercise Focus
We tend to think that taking our training seriously means following a serious plan.
Maybe some of that is borrowed from sport. An elite athlete follows a structured training programme designed to deliver a specific result. But that's their job; their training, recovery and progression are optimised so that they can perform at their best at a given time.
Most of us are working with a different set of circumstances.
Training fits alongside competing priorities: jobs, families, holidays, hobbies, social lives. And while a structured plan can still be incredibly useful, the best programme on paper isn't necessarily the best programme for a busy life.
If the aim is to become fitter, stronger, more confident and more capable over the long term, our plans need space to change.
Three full sessions might work one week; two shorter ones might work another. Sometimes we might need to reduce the intensity, change the type of exercise, or miss a session altogether.
None of this means the plan isn't working. In fact, adapting what we do when our circumstances change may be exactly what allows us to keep training consistently over time.
Taking our training seriously doesn't mean pretending the rest of our lives don't exist. It means finding a way to keep the two working together.
Nutrition Focus
Diets and food rules can make perfectly normal eating behaviour feel like a failure.
If we've decided not to eat chocolate, eating a piece means we've broken the rules. If we're counting calories, going over our target feels like we've gone off track. If we've planned to cook from scratch, ordering a takeaway feels like we've given in.
But before assuming the problem is what we ate, it's worth looking at the standard we're comparing it to.
Eating differently on holiday, having dessert at a restaurant, choosing convenience food when we're busy, or having more when we're hungry are all parts of normal, healthy eating behaviour.
Managing our eating in a way that only works when we have complete control over what, when and how much we consume is always going to be hard (and pretty joyless) to maintain.
That doesn't mean having some structure can't be useful. But that structure needs to be flexible enough to accommodate the parts of eating that aren't just about nutrition.
Food is also social, cultural, practical and enjoyable. What works for us in the long term has to leave room for all of those things too.
Explore More
From the archive: Why We Do the Things We Said We Wouldn't: The Void We Try To Fill explores another way in which we can be quick to judge ourselves: sometimes the seemingly unhelpful behaviours we're trying to change are actually meeting a need we haven't yet recognised.
From the archive: Self-Awareness vs Self-Surveillance: How Tracking, Metrics, and Data Work Against You looks at the pressure that can come from counting every step, workout or calorie, and what we might miss when tracking every number becomes more important than responding to real life.
Workbook: Rather than giving you another plan to follow, my free Sustainable Fitness Check-In helps you explore five key areas that support lasting change, including whether your current approach is flexible enough to work alongside real life.
Takeaway
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