Investing in the Plan. Not the Outcome.
It was Monday morning and I was ready to follow through with my self imposed writing goals. I felt organized and successful, knowing that while no one else was invested in my goals, I was still committed to honoring them. I was excited to be leaving my home-office routines behind, in hopes of being more productive. I wasn’t on a mission exactly, just an understanding that when I changed my atmosphere, I had a greater chance of completing my goals.
I changed into my work outfit: jeans, a T-shirt and high heeled sandals and headed to my favorite spot at the counter. I felt giddy about having 2.5 hours of meticulously planned out writing time and enjoyed the time alone to get shit done. I felt smitten about my planning, to be honest.
As I detailed my planner with everything I needed to get done, I sat back in my chair with my fingertips perched and ready to write.
Planning! All we need to conquer success is some real planning.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched a woman settle into her space in front of me. I held my fingers in place and thought, aha, another woman with real intention. While she was comfortably seated in her workout gear, her seriousness leaked everywhere as she began to set up her ‘office space’. I could see the intention not just in her eyes, but in everything she did. Quickly I became obsessed with her cleaning rituals and wondered if I needed to add some more rituals to my ‘work’ situation at Starbucks as well.
She pulled out a wet wipe from her bag and proceeded to wipe everything down. Everything. She carefully wiped the entire outside of her laptop, lifting it gently to also reach the under side of it. She then carefully cleaned the cover of her phone, lifting it also and cleaning every single angle. But she wasn’t done there. She then wiped down the whole table, again lifting everything so she could get under each thing she had just placed on the table.
I began to think that she must have trouble focusing until everything was just so. I was in awe of her attention to such detail in creating her perfect spot. Secretly I wondered where I could get those wipes and if I should be wiping down my equipment too!
My plan was to begin writing as soon as she was settled and ready to start. I pretended that we were about to share the same work space and that we were going to spend the morning working together. In that moment, she had become my accountability partner.
As it appeared we were pulling up to the start line, she lifted her grande frothy coffee drink, and began to wipe down every inch of the cup. She then moved it a bit closer to her things, slightly adjusting each tool on her ‘desk’ and then walked to the garbage to throw the wipe out.
At this point I knew we were just more than ready to start working.
She sat back in her seat, moving her laptop about an inch forward to get it in just the right spot and I looked down at my keys to get ready. I glanced up briefly then, watching her slide her laptop back just barely an inch. In that second, in what seemed like slow motion, the laptop hit the cup (the one she had just cleaned) ever so slightly, knocking the whole thing onto its’ side! Ice, drink and all…spilling all over the tiny table, her meticulously cleaned work space, falling onto the chair and now dripping off the other side of the table, where her backpack sat against the chair.
She sat motionless for what seemed like the longest 10 seconds of my life, no doubt in shock, as my heart raced right along with hers.
All of that work. Meticulously planning, her morning, her things, the care needed to clean all of her devices, her great intention to have a successful morning, and successful day. And now, everything was a mess! Would she leave? Would she go home? Would she flip out? I felt panicked but did not move, waiting to see if she would look up to catch eyes with me.
She did not appear to feel the panic I felt at all.
Instead, she walked calmly to the same place she had just come from and grabbed a handful of napkins. I wanted her to run back to the table to start cleaning before it reached her laptop, but she didn’t. She just walked, shaking her head a bit with each step. She then proceeded to stop the flow of coffee with her wad of paper towels, piled the heap of napkins on the table, then went to the cashier and told her about the spill.
That was what she did. My hands still perched on my laptop, heart racing and ready to call it a day, I watched in astonishment as the cashier then helped her clean up the mess, even mopping up the floor. Within 5 minutes it was all cleaned up, complete with a freshly filled coffee drink and all tools in place.
And that was that. She settled back into her chair and began to work as if nothing had ever happened. And so did I.
The sweet spot of the story was that we were both prepared. We had a plan, intention and the right mindset for a successful day. As a matter of fact, I would say that it was only due to the plans we made independently, that helped both of us stay focused on our original goal. Not letting a near disaster get in the way.
Because that is the thing about plans. All we can do is make them and then hope that the universe follows along. Sometimes it will and sometimes it won’t, but we have a much better chance of the success we hope for when we at least begin with a plan.