I grew up understanding what “Plan B” is and thinking of it as a good thing. It's like a backup plan. So, if Plan A does not work, you have a second option. Simple enough and understandable, this is what I thought until about a week ago.
I was listening to a famous actor speaking, now I do not usually listen to this person, but it was just at that moment as I was flicking through some channels and I paused and listened. He was talking about how bad it is to have a “Plan B”. Ok so now he got my attention, so I listened and to be honest, it made a lot of sense, I will explain.
So as individuals, we would like to set ourselves goals. (This is a general comment) and this is in our careers or even in our private lives. Nothing wrong with that, in fact, I think it is very healthy and should show ambition. Now, how much of you do you focus on this goal? Imagine if it will be challenging to achieve on the best of days, how much do you focus on it? 60%, 85%? Imagine a boxer that goes into camp before a fight, how much does he dedicate to the coming fight? He does not let anything distract him and keeps himself to himself in this period, maybe giving 100% focus. This puts him in the best possible frame of mind and position to be successful.
Imagine you have a goal, and you give maybe 65% towards this goal, but you have a “Plan B”, the truth is you will give some thought % to plan "B". I am not sure how much, but you will give some. This means that you are taking some % away from Plan A to keep the possibility of Plan B alive.
If you Plan A is very difficult to achieve with you giving 100% are you are going to achieve this by giving some % to you Plan B? I don't think so, If you know that you can always fall back on plan B then you have not given everything to plan A else you should not even have thoughts like that.
Imagine an athlete from a very poor family that was given a chance to run an elite race, how motivated will he be to train, believing that he has this one chance. He will give 100%. This is sometimes referred to as, an athlete being more hungry. They want it more and believe it’s all here and now. This can be the same in business adventures. Its difficult to be successful, but if you are not giving 100% you have taken a very difficult task and made it much more challenging.
So, what I would say is that you need to apply yourself 100%. It is true that you still may not make it or win the race BUT at least you can rest easy knowing that you put yourself in the best position to be successful. In such a position if you have the talent that you will be successful.
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