Disaster Planning
I started this decade as a 34-year old corporate professional, a wife of a Navy doctor, and a mother of a 15-month old sweet little boy who could curl up inside my heart with one look. In this decade, I moved into two new homes in two new cities. I became the mother of a feisty little girl, who is the sun itself in all its warmth and brightness and flaring fire. I weathered a 9-month deployment with two kids under 5. I got divorced and laid off. I got rehired and remarried. I started two new businesses. I left one, and kept one. I was a single mother for five years of the ten. I met a man who took in all of us in one peaceful, sweeping bear hug and promised to take care of us forever. Even the feisty one. I orchestrated 19 children’s birthday parties and a backyard wedding. I moved my parents. I traveled to 15 states, one territory, and 3 countries. I took my children to the ER 6 times, the hospital 8 times, and somehow kept them alive and otherwise healthy for 10 years. I voted. I marched. I wrote. I lost three dogs and gained four.
When I started this decade, I thought I had all the answers. If you had asked me if I knew what the next ten years would bring, I would have had a very certain and specific response. And about 95% of it would have been wrong. I know now that life is just gloriously unpredictable that way.
I enter this next decade as a 44-year old business owner, an artist’s wife, and the mother of two phenomenal humans. I still have my corporate job, but I’m not sure how long I will keep it. The kids are halfway to grown, and by the end of this decade they will be out of our home and on their own, but I have no idea what their lives will hold by then. I’m old enough now to understand that I have no idea what *my* life will hold by then. How many books will I have written? How many dogs will I have taken in? How many more ER visits are ahead of us? I have no idea. And that’s okay. It’s a good thing, actually, to leave the possibilities wide open and accept what’s on its way.
I used to write emergency management plans for the military. They would give me a set of disaster scenarios (earthquake, hurricane, active shooter, cyberattack, etc.), and I would write a response plan for each scenario. I would work with them to capture their detailed knowledge on all of the steps to take in the event of each disaster, the roles and responsibilities of everyone on the team, the laws that determined what could or could not be done. Each scenario went into its own binder. When a particular disaster struck, the idea was that the agency could just pull that binder off the shelf and get to work.
Except that’s rarely what happened.
And that’s a good thing.
It was widely understood that every disaster was a unique event. And while all hurricanes behave a certain way, and there may be commonalities at some level, in the end the team had to be able to think on its feet and respond in real time as events developed, shifted, and evolved.
And that wasn’t in the binder.
So why make the binders at all? Why even try to plan?
Planning gives you the opportunity to sit in a safe and disaster-free space and think through the fundamentals, the core principles, of who and what is truly important. You can prioritize and sort your thoughts ahead of time and without the fog of war muddling your clarity. You can practice decision making with your team before the real decisions have to get made. That’s true for disaster planning in military departments, but it’s also true for strategic planning in your life.
Planning gives you the resilience you need in those moments when life comes with its Easter egg surprises. When the plan gets tossed out the window. When you have to hit the ESC button, and regroup.
If you take the time now to set your priorities straight; to get clear on what you want, and don’t want, out of life; to understand deeply why you’re here in this time and place and what you have to offer this world in this lifetime, you can ready yourself for those times that real life hits. As an opportunity (or disaster) presents itself in your life, you can take your “binder” out, remind yourself what your mission and vision are for your life, remember what’s truly important, and then toss the binder to the side. You can make an informed, clear decision about this new thing in front of you, with the strength and confidence of someone who knows who they are and what they are about.
Because it’s in those moments when life truly unfolds.
