When Life Doesn’t Go According to Plan

We make plans because plans create direction. We imagine the career, relationship, family, home, business, retirement or future we expect to have.

In the trailer for Tyler Perry’s Doing Life, family expectations, single parenthood and a difficult past complicate what the characters might have planned. We do not know how those conflicts resolve. They do reflect a real Just Doing Life question: what can you build from the life in front of you when the original plan no longer fits?

Then life reminds us that a plan and a guarantee are not the same thing.

It is okay to be disappointed

There is pressure to turn every setback into an inspirational lesson immediately. Sometimes that skips an important part: admitting that something hurt.

You can be grateful for what remains and disappointed about what changed.

Ask whether the destination changed or only the route

A closed door may require a different approach rather than abandoning the goal entirely. Other times, an unexpected event reveals that the original destination no longer fits who you are.

Do not assume every detour means defeat.

Work with the life that exists now

We can lose years negotiating with reality: “This was not supposed to happen.” Maybe it was not. But eventually the useful question becomes, “Given that it did happen, what can I do now?”

Acceptance is not approval. It is recognizing the actual starting point.

Leave room for outcomes you could not have planned

Some of the most meaningful relationships, careers, ideas and changes begin after the original plan falls apart. That does not mean every painful event happens for a reason. It means human beings can sometimes create meaning from what happens.

Make another plan—but hold it with open hands

Planning still matters. Dreaming still matters. Goals still matter.

Just remember that flexibility is not the opposite of commitment. Sometimes flexibility is what allows you to keep moving when life changes the road.

You may not be where you expected to be. You are still here. There is still life to do.

Continue: You don’t have to have life figured out.

Explore the conversation: Tyler Perry’s Doing Life: what we know and the meaning of doing life.