Sometimes, You Just Gotta Make It Up As You Go
Why our obsession with following the plan can sabotage our success.
Two sharp gavel taps and a confident “the meeting room will come to order” kicks off the next team’s parliamentary procedure presentation. As I sit alongside my fellow judges at a local FFA contest, I’m reminded of how much I love the organization’s traditions of opening and closing ceremonies. Something about how the same set of words have been spoken by so many young people in so many places with so many different backgrounds just hits somewhere deep in my soul. Yet, on this particular day, I learned a new lesson from the way one student changed those words.
In this contest, students take on various officer roles, present opening ceremonies, conduct business as if they’re making decisions for an upcoming group event, and then close the meeting with the traditional closing ceremonies. The president’s role has the longest part of the presentation in closing ceremonies, and for high school freshmen, it can be a lot to memorize on top of how to use proper motions and conduct business. The team had done well throughout the presentation, yet, as they came to closing ceremonies, I was not prepared for how the president would handle it.
Before we get to that, take a moment to reflect on the last few New Years. Have you made resolutions, goals, plans for success? Have you set lofty goals or complex routines or rigid structures for your life, most of which likely fell by the wayside as time went on? Many folks will say we should just throw out the attempt to make plans or start new habits, if they won’t work anyway. My challenge to you is this: maybe the problem isn’t the plan as much as our unwillingness to adapt when, inevitably, things change.
Back to the FFA contest room. The official line from the closing ceremony script goes like this: “As we mingle with others, let us be diligent in our labor, just in our dealings, courteous to everyone, and, above all, honest and fair in the game of life.” Inspiring, right? This team’s president, however, had a new take. As he wrapped up the meeting, he said something more like this: “Now, I hope as we leave this meeting, we will all be fair and honest with the people around us, and let’s all just be kind to each other.” Gavel drop, meeting adjourned.
On the score sheet, this deviation from the script was a point deduction. But, as an observer, I felt a new inspiration from those words. This kid may not have gotten the exact wording right, but his paraphrase showed he clearly understood the meaning behind the original words. He wasn’t just reciting the script, he was communicating the purpose of the script in a way that made sense to him and his peers. An abundantly clear lesson jumped out at me from this seemingly insignificant moment:
If we insist on following a script for achieving goals, we will likely fail. Yet, if we have a clear picture of the purpose of our goals, we will be able to adjust the script as we go, making success far more likely.
What I don’t mean by this is that we should set goals and then just hope they happen because we know why we want to achieve them. No, I mean that we should have a solid understanding of what we want and why, so that when life does what life does and throws curveballs our way, we can adjust the plan without just giving up.
Is one of your goals this year to start (or re-start) a journaling habit, so you set your alarm 30 minutes earlier to get it done in the morning? What happens when you still hit snooze one too many times and end up without the time to journal in the morning—do you skip the habit because you couldn’t do it when you planned, or do you find a spare moment over lunch or before heading to bed in the evening? I’m notoriously guilty of skipping habits if I can’t do them when I planned to do them. But, the purpose of journaling is the habit itself, not when I do it. That part is relatively arbitrary.
Or, maybe you have a role model you look up to in your career and you think you need to follow their precise career path to get to the same place in life; maybe it’s less about trying to follow the path in jobs and more about emulating their character and admirable traits. Following someone else’s script is rarely an effective way to achieve our goals, but paying attention to their purpose can be helpful.
After the contest that night, I had a chance to chat with the student who wrote his own script. While I advised him to memorize the correct script for the next time he competes, I couldn’t help but express some admiration that he got the point. He said “well, I knew I wasn’t going to get it right if I tried to do it exactly the way it was on the script, so I figured I’d just say what it meant.”
If he had tried to remember the script, he very likely would have stalled on the first few words, ran the clock over time, and not earned any more points for his team. But, because he improvised with what made sense to him, he saved us all the second-hand embarrassment of watching someone forget their line for minutes at a time. And, he made us think.
What if we approached our plans for 2025 with an open-handedness like this guy? What if, when the plan isn’t working anymore, we just improvised? When step one doesn’t work, we create step 1.5? You see, I think part of the point of new goals and routines is to mess them up: that’s the part we learn from. Will you join me in making some stuff up as we go this year? I think we’ll show up in 2026 with more confidence, progress, and fulfillment that way. And, also, let’s just all be kind, okay?
Journal Prompt of the Week
What’s your vision for 2025? What are some ways you can be ready to improvise?
Great thoughts. Thank you for sharing your insight.