Planning ahead during uncertain times

One of the things I know I’ve struggled with recently, and have had a number of conversations with family, friends and coaching clients is how we can continue to plan ahead in the current climate where we don’t know when we’ll be able to do some of the things we’d normally plan.

I’d planned to go away for my birthday in May this year – I hadn’t booked anything yet but I had a strong intention to travel somewhere new and was very excited about it. I’d also booked a couple of events and activities for around my birthday week. None of those things will now be happening, and I don’t know when they’ll be able to.

So I could feel sad about that, or I could choose to accept it, keep them in my plan and look forward to a time when I can do them. I know which of those options would serve me better for sure! ????

Some days, just getting to the end of the day having eaten, exercised, and stayed sane is all I can manage. Planning anything other than the next couple of minutes feels beyond me. On other days though, I feel a desire to plan things to look forward to.

Here’s what is helping me continue to plan things to look forward to at the moment:

  • Short-term – plan small things each day to look forward to (today’s it’s setting up some new gadgets when I’ve finished this blog post!)
  • Medium-term – plan a few things you can enjoy in the next few weeks wherever you are (for me this includes knitting projects, Lego, films and TV shows)
  • Long-term – plan what you would like to do longer-term, and start to do some things towards that now (for me that’s travelling – I’m going to do some research to help me decide where I’d like to travel to)

You can use these for your personal life, your work life, or across your life in general. We’re living in unusual times though there are still plenty of things to look forward to in the near future and later.

What are you most looking forward to this week?

What can you do to prepare for things to look forward to further in the future?