You don’t need a better plan

We don’t need a better plan… We just need more commitment.

If you think back to January 2020 (seems like an eternity, doesn’t it), you probably had some kind of plan for the year ahead. And by around March or April, I’m guessing that plan went out the window. 

Now, more than a year later, your plans (for work, life, training, or anything else) are probably still feeling uncertain and far from ideal.

Very few of us are working off our “optimal” plans right now. 

But as I like to say, 100% commitment to a 50% plan beats a 50% commitment to a 100% plan. Every single time.

I think of mediocre, unambitious plans as a “50% plan.” It’s definitely far from the “100%” plan you had in mind, or the plan you used to have in the good old days.

But if we keep wishing or waiting for a better plan, we’ll never get anything done. (The line from the ‘90s movie “Grumpy Old Men” comes to mind: “wish in one hand, crap in the other — see which fills up first.”) I’m all for dreaming, but looking back and wishing things were different doesn’t get us very far. 

On the other hand, if we commit to what’s in front of us and put 100% effort and faith into the plan we’ve got, we can actually accomplish some pretty great stuff.

Looking back on my bobsled career I can say that I wasn't the strongest or the most powerful. 

There were a lot of guys out there that came to the table with a lot more natural talent to push a sled than I did. 

What I did have was the ability to make the tough decisions, commit to those decisions, and recognize when I may have made the wrong decision, and make the necessary adjustments. It wasn’t about pride in my plan or process, it was about pride in winning, the right way. So admitting if the plan was wrong or if I had erred was a good thing. Discovering an issue was the pride point and we’d move forward accordingly.

The beauty of sport allows us to see results relatively quickly (within months) what committal, semi-committal, or non-committal will do to an athletes’ performance. 

I was incredibly fortunate. My coach, Stu McMillan, turned out to be one of the best in the world. I moved 2,000 miles away to train with him in 2003. And that meant I had the confidence of a 95%+ quality plan with 100% faith in Stu. 

On the flip side, however, plenty of athletes didn’t see Stu’s training the same way. They never fully committed. And they suffered the consequences of being on the fence for far too long. 

I saw some athletes questioning training methods, jumping from coach to coach, year after year. As a result, they never achieved their potential. It was a tough thing to watch.

On the other hand, I’ve learned that in life, business, sport — any area, really — we can still be successful if we just dig in and execute what’s right in front of us.

Commitment counts more than perfect planning. 

So we might as well choose to find the positives in our imperfect plan, and just get after it. 

- Steve