There Is No Backup Plan

Nov 19, 2015 1 min readSelf-Improvement
Photo of Courtney Seiter
Courtney Seiter

Former Director of People @ Buffer

I was talking with Leo the other day about plans to launch a new Buffer feature when he said something that totally rearranged my mind.

He diplomatically opened the conversation with an “If we can…” type statement and I immediately keyed in on the uncertainty I heard in that “if”, asking about alternative dates and plans, the likelihood of this or that.

Leo quickly corrected what I had heard: “It’s going to happen. There is no backup plan.”

And immediately, my brain calmed. Shifted. Crystallized around the goal.

There is no backup plan. It’s gotta happen. How can I make it happen?

How often in life do we devote half our brainpower to thinking about the ways something won’t work before we’ve even given it a chance to?

What if there were no plan B, no alternative, no do-over? No opportunity to submerge our ideas in the safety of doubt.

From now on, it’s my goal to see all projects and life goals this way.

There is no backup plan. There’s only you, making it happen.

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