There’s nothing like a birthday to get you reflecting on all the things you’ve accomplished in the past 365 days and dreaming about the amazing things you could potentially set as your goals for the next year. I penned a list of the things I was brave (or stupid enough) to have a crack at in this past year and was surprised to find that it was several pages long! Wow!
I then turned my attention to the year ahead. What is it that I want to try and achieve during my next spin around the sun? Answering that question has proved much harder. I can’t seem to put my finger on a particular thing that drives my enthusiasm and excitement. I wonder why that is?
Perhaps it is because many of the experiences and activities on my first list were actually happy accidents? I didn’t purposefully set out to climb a mountain, although a series of smaller decisions led me to the top of Mount Kosciusko on a hot and windy Summer’s day.
I didn’t plan to search for a pot of gold at the Leprechaun museum in Dublin, but a few twists and turns to my original plan of being in Spain in September meant that I rendezvoused with one of my oldest friends on the green isle instead.
No matter how much planning and over-thinking I do about a situation or a potential solution, this year has taught me that sometimes there is power in under-thinking it and allowing for the tides of influence to help guide a destination. I cannot control everything. Shocking I know. 🙂
At school we were taught to look for the best, the brightest, the quickest or most impressive answer. Do you best work! Strive your hardest! Get the highest mark! But life so far has taught me that we rarely ever get an opportunity to implement the perfect answer.
I’m not talking about settling for sub-standard work. But what if we use an under-thinking principle instead? What if we embraced a more relaxed and accepting approach, looking at what we can do now to make the situation better, not necessarily perfect? As an expert procrastinator I think I may actually get more done if I stopped over-thinking how to make it perfect.
What if, instead of looking at the potential perfect solution, you start with the simplest instead?
To read more, why not check out Michelle Gibbings’ article on LinkedIn – Are you over complicating it?
QUESTION:
Have you under-thought something and it paid off? Perhaps you’ve ended up somewhere completely different to your original plan? Pop your answer in the comments below.
INSIDE THE INCIDENT 
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