“Uh oh. We have to restructure our entire strategic planning session tomorrow, because of what you just said onstage” the CEO told me. “Now that I know goals and plans are two different things, everything we had was a plan. Gotta change that before our session in the morning!”
We had just finished talking about how we often confuse goals and plans. The difference? Plans only have one way to accomplish the task. Goals are broader. Goals should have many roads that lead to the same destination.
If what you’re working towards is a multi-step process where one step leads to the next and there’s just one way to get there? And any deviation from the path means you won’t get there? That’s a plan, not a goal.
When you confuse goals and plans, you make it much more difficult to adapt. Because if there’s only one way to reach what you want, no wonder change feels impossible!
But if you realize that a goal actually has lots of ways to get there, it doesn’t feel as difficult to adapt. You can pivot. You can change. You can find another way.
Before your next strategic planning meeting or goal-setting journaling session, ask yourself: is this a goal? Or a plan?
