When Plan A Fails

Repetition is the act of doing the same thing multiple times. However, there are some lessons we can learn from this word.

If you plant a seed and don’t water it, the seed will shrivel up and die. If you plant another seed, and you don’t water it, don’t expect different results. That seed will shrivel up and die as well.

When you see something isn’t working, you need to make a change. Those seeds shriveled up and died because they weren’t getting enough water. Giving them the same amount of water doesn’t solve the problem. You need to make a change. Plan A isn’t working at all.

Start by giving the seed more water. If the seed still shrivels up and dies, you know you didn’t give the seed enough water. However, if the seed dies because you poured in too much water, you know a change needs to be made.

When Plan B doesn’t work, that doesn’t give you the option to go back to Plan A. If Plan A didn’t work before, it won’t work again. What you need to do is go for Plan C. Give the seed water frequently. Give the seed some water in the morning, some water in the afternoon, and some in the evening.

If Plan C doesn’t work, you don’t go back to Plan A or Plan B. You go to Plan D, Plan E, Plan F, Plan G, and any other plan you get to. If you end up getting to Plan Z, go to Plan AB. If something didn’t work for you the first time, chances are it won’t work the second time. If the car’s engine doesn’t start, and you don’t do anything to your car’s engine, it won’t start if you try again. You have to get that engine fixed.

Some people have many plans that don’t work. It took Thomas Edison over 10,000 experiments to finalize the first working lightbulb. Imagine all of the Plan A’s and Plan B’s Edison had. One of the plans worked because he knew what didn’t work. Plan A didn’t work so he moved on to Plan B. Plan B didn’t work so he moved on to Plan C.

We can’t continue investing money and time into something that doesn’t work. TV ads are not as effective as they used to be (I’ve been reading Purple Cow). When Plan A fails, it’s necessary to move on to the next plan. If you don’t want to give up on your business, make a change to your business. Plan B doesn’t always mean giving up everything you have worked on. Plan B means trying to find a way to make something work. As long as it works, you don’t have to come up with any plans. When Plan B doesn’t work anymore, it’s time to move on to Plan C.

As long as you don’t give up, you will find a successful plan. The guy who came up with the movie Rocky was so poor that he had to sell his dog so he could buy himself food (he ended up getting his dog back. It’s an incredible story although I don’t have enough time to go in detail about it). He had tons of Plan A’s and Plan B’s, but now we know the story of Rocky. We all know the Rocky music when we hear it.