Stick to the plan - Kay White

I’m all for flexing and going with the flow rather than being TOO fixed about things.

Sometimes though, when faced with a challenge, sticking to the plan and keeping going is the thing to do. To challenge back or push back on cancelling something because something’s happened.

Let me explain. Last week was challenging in the automotive sense.

We set off with Jeffrey in the car to see our friends in Oxford which is about 2 hours drive from us.

An hour from home, our car started making clunky and whirring noises at the back.

We came off the motorway, checked it out, it stopped. We decided to carry on.

It then got worse.

We turned off the motorway at the next junction, phoned our friends and came home.

It would have been SO easy to cancel and reschedule. To say to our friends that being over 2 hours late for lunch meant it just wasn’t feasible.

But it was. So. We swapped cars.

We arrived there at 2.30pm instead of 12.30pm. Had such fun together (and great food) and then came home again, albeit home by 8pm instead of 6pm.

What it showed me is that when we think “oh it’s just not worth it now” or “it’s too difficult, it’s a sign” that pushing that aside and sticking to the plan – in our case to see friends we haven’t seen for ages and who we’re SO fond of – was more important.

The time flexed with us . What you find at work is that colleagues, clients, contemporaries will all flex with you too. If and when you keep them posted and tell them what your Plan B, C, D etc is.

Where can this thinking support you with your ‘doings‘ as my friend calls them?

Can you flex with the plan but stick to it more than is comfortable?
How can you be more present to what’s important than to what’s in the plan?
As a recovering perfectionist (with control-freak tendencies), I know it can be tricky.

It’s worth it though. The more grey hairs and laughter lines I gather along the way, the more I know this to be true.

Talking of grey hairs and laughter lines, Douglas Puppyhound, our newest Lurcher has been with us for one year this weekend. What a ride it’s been and he’s contributed to both these things by just being his glorious, pesky and lovable self!

Snowy with Douglas on the day we picked him up.