Back-up plans are an excuse to fail.
Say you want to be a movie actor. With all your heart you want to be an actor, it's all you've wanted to do.
What would you do? Would you move to Hollywood as soon as you can, take acting classes and start auditioning right away?
Or would you go to school for a degree in whatever just so if you fail at acting you can fall back on something?
Conventional wisdom says you should have a backup plan, just ‘in case'. That you need insurance against a lifetime of failure.
Conventional wisdom is for conventional people. They accept their choice of backup plan because they know they are going to fail and apparently they are ok with that.
The reality is that if you accept your backup plan and live that life you are a monstrous failure. You are a failure because you gave up on yourself, because you didn't believe in yourself, because you refused to let yourself succeed.
When you have a burning desire and you put all of your energies into making it a reality the truth is that you cannot fail. Failure is impossible, beyond impossible. It isn't even a thought.
Ah, but when you have that back-up plan still lingering in your mind you aren't truly giving 110% to achieve your goals. Maybe you're giving 75%, even 95% but that isn't good enough. It takes 100% minimum.
Kill your back-up plan and put all your energy into becoming what you truly want to become. If your burning desire is to be a Doctor, great, go for it.
If your burning desire is to be a traveling fashion photographer, great, go for it. Is your burning desire to be a salesman or an office drone or a substitute teacher? Probably not.
Burn your bridges. Pass the point of no return. Give in to your desire with all your heart. You cannot fail. It's impossible.
Thank God I found you Victor. I am currently not in shape, but I DEFINATELY will make that goal ASAP, and once I do I WILL become the best fitness model/Trainer in the world and later become the greatest Public Speaker this world has ever seen. These are my passions, PERIOD. I have HUGE dreams in all of those fields. But people(especially my own family!) Keep discouraging me from doing it, but thanks to you Victor, what they say doesnt even matter anymore. They want me to study medicine (as backup) haha…That ain’t happenin…I’m following my dreams, and I WILL be successful..PERIOD.
James,
Boom! You’ve said it now make it happen.
PS - You want to be a fitness model, you need to read this article and believe every word - https://boldanddeterminedarchive.com/2011/10/18/the-secret-to-gaining-muscle/
There is no Plan B. Simple as.
Although I have found the vast majority of the advice on this site to be
toally on point, I will have to totally disagree with this article. Not having
contingency plans / plan B in your various endevors is utterly stupid. As
the owner of a construction company fighting to survive in a hellish market , if
I didn’t have a plan B I would have been washed up long ago. All this rubbish
In this article sounds great for the motivational speaker set, but for those of us
out in the trenches doing ambitious risky complex stuff, you better have a plan B
and a damn good well thought out one at that or you wont survive to fight a war after
losing one battle
I know I am a little late to the party, but I must say that your comment is entirely codswallop. Your job happens to be the exception to the rule. There are very few jobs that require you to have a back-up plan to your backup plan. I know that the general idea of Victor’s post is:
1) Make a commitment
2) Give 110%
Exactly what I needed to read on Sunday night before bed. Tomorrow is Monday you motherfuckers, I’ll be up in 6 hours ready to work my ass off because I’m pissed off for what I want, no for what I NEED. There is no other way and tomorrow I’m going after it with all I’ve got.
Make shit happen.
Excellent Article!!! I keep telling people that back up plans are for people who don’t believe in themselves. Why would I want to have a back up plan? so i can have a job I don’t like while I watch other people do what I wanted to do??? FUCK THAT!
I read an article where someone had an awesome career as a comedy writer. He was making good money, but the hours were so grueling that he had no time for his family. He decided to quit and do something else and after a few years he tried to be a comedy writer again only to find that most of the jobs were gone and he had to try a different career which didn’t work out. Eventually he lost his house, was separated from his wife and was homeless. He didn’t have a back up plan for a career that died out and guess what? That fucked him over for a quite awhile. It’s not cowardly to have a back up plan, it’s called intelligence. Maybe you just need to become homeless to understand this, but for me, I’m gonna have a fucking back up plan and not get fucked over if plan A didn’t work out. Work towards your dreams but have a damn back up plan unless being a hobo sounds fun to you, ok? Ok.
I get the advice of this article and as usual it’s very inspiring. However not everyone will meet their goals no matter how much effort they pour into them. I’ll admit I’m still a loser but I’d rather be a loser with a roof over my head than a loser who is now homeless because I didn’t have a back-up plan if I failed at all my efforts to give myself a better life. Again I love the website but not everyone will succeed, and it would be very foolish to not have something to fall back on.