You Don’t Need a Better Plan, You Need a Different State

One of the reasons we struggle to get what we want is surprisingly simple: we haven’t decided what we actually want.

When you’re very young, you’re very connected to your immediate wants and needs. If you’re hungry, you cry. When you’re tired, you sleep. You want something, you reach for it. You don’t spend much time wondering whether you’re allowed to want it.

As we get older, things get more complicated. We start hearing things from authority figures like ‘don’t touch that’, ‘eat everything on your plate whether you like it or not’, ‘you can’t have everything you want’, ‘money doesn’t grow on trees’. None of these messages are necessarily bad. Children need boundaries. They need to learn consideration and patience.

But over time we become so accustomed to responding to what other people want from us that we stop asking ourselves what we want. We choose the sensible career. We buy the house we’re supposed to want. We pursue goals because they look impressive. We say yes when we want to say no. And eventually we become very good at achieving things without being particularly clear about why we’re achieving them.

During COVID, Tony Robbins’ live events were shut down, so he created an online version of one of his major events for free. I’ve attended it every year since, and over the years I’ve also read and listened to more than 100 personal-development books. I’ve taken ideas from all of this and built them into the personal-development workshops I run on my yoga retreats.

The workshops have evolved, but one framework has stayed at the heart of them:

STATE → STORY → STRATEGY

When we want to change something, we usually jump straight to strategy. We look for the perfect diet, the perfect training programme, the perfect productivity system, the perfect business plan. But strategy isn’t necessarily the first problem to solve. You can have the best strategy in the world, but if you’re in the wrong state, and the story you’re telling yourself is that it won’t work anyway, you’re unlikely to follow it.

So let’s look at the three S’s.

1. State — how are you feeling?

Think about the difference between trying to solve a problem when you’re exhausted, stressed and distracted, versus doing the same thing after a good night’s sleep, a workout and a great meal. The circumstances haven’t changed. You have.

Our physical and mental state influences the choices we make and what we’re capable of focusing on. So before trying to solve the problem, sometimes the first thing to do is change your state. This doesn’t have to be complicated. I think about three simple levers: your body, your breathing, and your focus.

Change your body: There’s not one thing you can do here. Tony Robbins uses a cold plunge he has in his garden. During his events he has people stand up and jump around to loud music. The idea of cold water and dancing might not appeal to you, so maybe get outside for a walk instead. In my workshops on the retreat we run through a simple yoga flow. If you’re familiar with yoga, just a few Sun Salutations might work for you. You don’t need anything overly complicated, just a few minutes of movement is often enough to noticeably shift how you feel. The point is recognising that you aren’t completely at the mercy of whatever state you woke up in. You can influence it.

Change your breathing: If you’re feeling wound up, slowing your breathing can help you settle. Try breathing slowly and evenly for a minute or two, with a slightly longer exhale than inhale. If you know pranayama, a technique like Nadi Shodhana works well too. There’s no single magic technique, different breath work patterns suit different situations. What matters is that you take a moment to centre yourself and stop the mind whirling.

Change your focus: Tony Robbins often says ‘where focus goes, energy flows’. Where you put your attention matters. Take a moment to remember a time you felt completely alive, energised or joyful. It could be a big achievement or a small moment, a shared laugh, a sporting success, or finishing something you’re proud of. Close your eyes and feel that moment fully. What could you see? What could you hear? How did your body feel? Let that energy fill your body.

You’ll never be 100% ready to act, but the good news is that you don’t need to be. Sometimes action has to come first. But deliberately changing your state can make taking that action a lot easier.

2. Story — what are you telling yourself?

You can get yourself into a more positive, energetic state, but if the story you’re telling yourself is negative, you’ll likely come off the rails at the first obstacle.

A story is an accumulation of beliefs. We all have an internal narrative running in the background: I’m not confident enough. I’m too old. I don’t have enough money. People like me don’t do things like that. I’ve tried before and failed. The problem isn’t that these thoughts exist. The problem is when we mistake them for facts.

Tony uses the metaphor of a table. Belief is represented as the flat table top, but it’s not a table until you add legs. The legs are the evidence that support that belief. Often the legs are the negative beliefs we hold, so we need to take action to strip away the legs by challenging past results and events.

Tony Robbins’ teacher Jim Rohn used to say ‘success leaves clues’. It can be useful to look at the lives of other people, especially those from a similar background, who have achieved the results we desire. We tend to imagine successful people were simply born successful. We see the finished product, not the years of rejection and uncertainty that came before it. We imagine that these people knew exactly what to do, but sometimes not knowing how it ‘should’ be done can be our advantage.

Cliff Young — what if you don’t know the rules?

In 1983, 61-year-old Australian potato farmer Cliff Young entered the first Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon, a race of roughly 544 miles. It was a race for elite ultramarathoners, athletes who had calculated every calorie, nap and step. Cliff turned up in boots and overalls, looking so out of place that the organisers thought it was a joke!

People were worried that he wouldn’t be able to complete the race, let alone win it! The professional strategy was clear, run for eighteen hours, sleep and recover for six hours. Cliff clearly hadn’t read the manual, as when the other athletes slept he carried on running. Well, not exactly running, Cliff’s running style looked more like shuffling his feet than running and was later dubbed ‘the Young shuffle’.

He won the race, crossing the line ten hours ahead of his nearest rival and setting a record of five days, 15 hours and four minutes. Not knowing the rules meant he was free to rewrite them. How many of the things you believe you “have” to do are actually things you’ve chosen?

Sometimes the story holding us back isn’t ‘I can’t do this’, it’s ‘people like me don’t do things like this’.

They all got rejected first

Reading about people who changed careers later in life, or started a business with limited resources, or got stronger from where you’re standing now, doesn’t guarantee your success. But it does expand your sense of what’s possible.

And rejection turns out to be far more common at the start of most success stories than people assume:

• Lord of the Flies was turned down by publishers 21 times before Faber and Faber finally accepted it

• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was rejected by 12 publishers

• Andy Warhol once offered New York’s Museum of Modern Art a drawing called “Shoe” as a free gift. They turned it down and asked him to come and collect it

• Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, the company he founded

• Walt Disney’s first animation studio went bankrupt, and he later lost the rights to his own character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, after his distributor poached his animators. He was also reportedly turned down by 302 banks before he found funding for Disneyland

• Colonel Sanders reportedly had his fried chicken recipe rejected over a thousand times before a restaurant finally said yes

Stoic philosopher Seneca said: “No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity, for he is not permitted to prove himself”. The danger isn’t rejection, it’s how we react to it.

Change your identity, change your life

“Identity is this incredible force that controls your whole life.” — Tony Robbins

Tony Robbins talks a lot about identity as a driver of behaviour. The idea is simple: your identity shapes your choices. If you’re not a smoker and someone offers you a cigarette you don’t ask ‘what brand?’, the answer is clear. If you see yourself as someone who exercises, exercising becomes part of what you do. If you see yourself as someone who procrastinates, procrastination becomes part of the story you keep reinforcing.

Your identity is built from evidence. You behave a certain way, you see yourself behaving that way, and that becomes evidence about who you are. The cycle continues from there.

So ask yourself what your old identity is, and what identity you want to build instead. ‘I’m someone who procrastinates’ can become ‘I’m someone who takes action even when I don’t feel ready’. ‘I’m not good with money’ can become ‘I’m someone who takes responsibility for my finances’. Then ask the useful follow-up question: what would someone with this new identity do today? That’s where identity stops being an affirmation and starts being a behaviour. For example, want to get in amazing physical shape and wondering what to do for lunch? Ask yourself ‘would a competitive body builder order Dominoes or would they make a healthy meal at home?’

Sylvester Stallone decided he was Rocky

Before Rocky, Stallone was a broke, largely unknown actor. He didn’t have money but he knew he had something of value, the script for Rocky. He took it to numerous producers, many of whom were not interested. Eventually he did receive a good offer for the script, but with the big caveat that he would not be chosen to play Rocky. Stallone was adamant that he was Rocky and refused to sell the script. His financial situation was so bad that he had to sell his dog, Butkus, to pay his bills.

Eventually a producer took a chance on him, the film got made, and once he had the money, Stallone bought Butkus back at a much higher price. The dog went on to appear in Rocky and Rocky II.

It’s easy to look at Stallone now and assume he was always going to make it. At the time, he had almost nothing, and every reason to take the money and let someone else play the part. Instead he made a decision about who he was going to be, and that decision changed what he was willing to accept.

Mel Fisher believed the treasure was worth finding

Mel Fisher spent years searching for the wreck of the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha, which sank off the coast of Florida in 1622. He started looking in the late 1960s and kept going for years through financial problems and legal battles.

Then in 1975, his son Dirk, his daughter-in-law Angel, and another crew member were killed when their salvage boat capsized during the search. Fisher continued anyway. Ten years later, almost to the day, his team finally found the main treasure from the wreck, estimated at around $400 million in gold, silver and gems.

Fisher’s mantra throughout the whole search was reportedly just three words: “Today’s the day.” To search for something for 16 years, through tragedy, you need a specific story running in your head, the treasure is out there, I can find it, it’s worth the effort.

Having a positive story is not the same as being delusional. It means being careful about the stories you use to decide when to give up. You can believe something is possible while acknowledging it will be hard. You can be optimistic while preparing for obstacles. Believing that something is possible is only useful if you’re also prepared to work out how you’re going to do it, which is where strategy comes in.

3. Strategy — what are you actually going to do?

Once you’ve changed your state and examined your story, it’s time for strategy. This is where most of us actually start, which is part of the problem. We research and research and research, looking for the perfect workout, the perfect business model, the perfect productivity system. There’s nothing wrong with strategy, but it can quietly become another form of procrastination. I’ve been guilty of this myself many times. The research feels good, it’s interesting and feels like you’re really taking positive action, but if all you do is research you get zero results. On more than one occasion, I’ve put together my perfect training plan, meticulously scheduling the activities of every day of the week to optimise my time. The main issue was that I didn’t even manage to stick to the plan for even a single day! It turns out that life happens and the best laid plans get knocked off track. This is why I now like the WOOP system.

WOOP

This is one of my favourite goal-setting frameworks as it’s grounded in science that proves that just visualising success can actually impede your chances of achieving it. Developed by psychologist Gabriele Oettingen, it stands for Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan, and it combines positive thinking about what you want with realistically considering what might get in the way.

Wish: What do you want? Make it specific and achievable rather than vague, not “I want my life to be perfect,” but “I want to change careers” or “I want to run a 10K.”

Outcome: If you achieved that wish, what would be the best thing about it? Spend a moment imagining it properly. Don’t just picture what it looks like, think about why it actually matters to you.

Obstacle: This is the part we usually skip. What is most likely to get in the way, what’s the obstacle inside you that’s actually most likely to stop you? Procrastination, fear of failure, being too tired, avoiding a difficult conversation. The point isn’t to become negative. It’s to become realistic, because if you know what’s likely to derail you, you can prepare for it.

Plan: Now build an if then plan. If X happens, then I’ll do Y. If your plan is to run in the morning, rather than waking up and realising you can’t find your running clothes, it’s cold and dark and you just want to go back to bed, be prepared for this. Have the running clothes laid out ready, and if you still don’t want to run, have the back-up plan of ‘I’ll just get changed and walk to the end of the drive and back’. Chances are that once you’re outside you’ll run. You’re not relying on motivation in the moment. You’ve already decided what you’re going to do when the predictable obstacle shows up, which is the difference between having an intention and having a plan.

Don’t underestimate asking for help

Strategy doesn’t mean figuring everything out alone. If someone has already solved a similar problem, learn from them, read the book, take the course, watch the YouTube video, ask the person who’s done it.

We no longer live in an age where information is hard to find. We now have AI too. AI is particularly useful at the strategy stage: tell it what you’re trying to achieve, where you’re starting from, what resources and constraints you’re working with, and what’s currently getting in your way. Ask it for several possible approaches and the trade-offs between them. It doesn’t know your life better than you do, and it isn’t a substitute for professional advice where that matters, but it’s a genuinely good brainstorming partner. Sometimes what’s standing between you and action isn’t a lack of motivation. You just haven’t worked out what to do next.

Putting it together

Next time you want to make a change, resist the urge to go straight to strategy.

Start with your state: move your body, breath and focus.

Then check your story: remove the negative table supports. If someone else has done it, you can do it. What’s your new identity and how would a person with that identity act?

Then build your strategy: what you actually want, why it matters, what obstacles will likely get in the way, and what you’ll do when they appear.

You don’t need the whole path mapped out before you begin. Sometimes the strategy only becomes clear after you’ve taken the first step. As Tony Robbins says: “The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.”