Make no little plans

Daniel Burnham

The other day someone asked what I was working on now. I told them I was trying to finish up a holiday romance novel and a book on holiday entertaining before the end of October. They told me I was crazy.

I should probably agree.

I’m an indie author who self-publishes. No one is breathing down my neck to get copy. No one is enforcing deadlines. No one is holding my nose to the grindstone.

Except me.

Call it competitiveness.

Call it an unhealthy sense of drive.

Call it being insane.

Call it whatever you will, but the fact remains that if I don’t hold myself accountable, who will?

I have had this quote, “Make no little plans,” from Daniel Burnham taped to my desk at work for months.

It isn’t the complete quote, but it is the part that keeps me striving to do better, to do more.

Why bother to make plans at all if they are piddly? It is a waste of time and an insult to your talents and abilities.

Stretch beyond that comfort zone and reach for something bigger. Plans, or goals, should be just beyond what you think you can achieve. If you hit the goal and plans work out, you’ll have stretched yourself in such a way that old comfort zone won’t ever quite fit the same. Even if you miss the goal by just a bit, you’ll still have come farther than you thought possible.

The novel I’m currently writing has the word plan in the title and talks about plans all through the book. The hero is constantly thinking about plans and how little ones aren’t going to cut it.

Be like our hero and think of a plan worth working hard to achieve. Maybe it is something you’ve been wanting to do at home. Maybe it is a career goal. Maybe it is a vacation you’ve always thought about taking.

Go out there and make a big plan today!