It’s really just laziness, this romanticized belief that I am somehow capable of achieving big, positive changes just by ‘winging it’. It sounds better as a story too — to say that everything was unexpected and things just managed to be awesome at the end.

But I’m learning now that as anti-climatic as it may sound, I am nothing without preparation. Almost all the stories I wrote that got me something/somewhere involved countless hours of walking back and forth thinking of a good plot. Great things come from deciphering patterns, doing research, hard work, trial & error, thinking of strategies or, at times, manipulation techniques. And this applies to all things, even the most trivial ones. One of the silliest assumptions in the world is that good things come easily to people. It’s only easy to believe this because the the planning and preparation stages are usually left out in tales of seemingly effortless glory.

No matter what you want to achieve, big or small, never underestimate the power of strategy. Always allot preparation time — allow for ideas to brew, the universe to conspire, things to fall into place. Stop cheating yourself out of things you could have done better. Strategy never cost you anything. You may fail, but the lessons you get from a well-planned move is a thousand times more potent that what you get from a thoughtless action. How you prepare sets your mindset for how you perform. And you know for a fact that you are phenomenal when you’re prepared.