Planners vs adapters
Planners vs adapters conjures up a battle between scheduling notebooks and outlet converters. What I am really referring to is how you relate to time.
One huge piece of time awareness is rooted in self awareness. It’s hard to analyze our time unless we're willing to identify our core relationship to time. People who tend to plan everything have a very different perspective on time than those who go with the flow and adapt as situations arise. Neither approach is better, but it is critical to beware the pitfalls of your own tendencies.
PLANNERS
Full disclosure, I’m a planner. Those closest to me can attest to the color-coded spreadsheets I gleefully make before each vacation. I love to imagine the optimal trip, where we get to do all of the activities and eat at all the places. Without a schedule, I worry that reservation-only and other time-specific activities will fall by the wayside. I like to feel well-prepared, but in the same breath what even is well-prepared? You can stock up on emergency water, prep an evacuation kit, make lists upon lists, do the fire drills, and yet still not be prepared for a cancer diagnosis, a car accident, or even simply the power going out before movie night. Preparation gives the illusion of safety, from fear, from hurt. It makes us feel like we are immune to the pitfalls of everyday life. While I sometimes think being blissfully unaware has its merits, it’s also depriving us of being able to fully enjoy and appreciate life with all of its harsh realities. Likewise, over-preparing also has that tendency, to a degree; when you’re only planning for the future, you forget to notice the present moment, which, as I will say a hundred thousand times is in fact, the only moment we do have. The color-coded vacation spreadsheet aims at providing a baseline of enjoyment, but isn’t necessarily reality. Many planners have a hard time veering off of said plan and absolutely flounder when having to adjust. If breakfast runs late domino-effecting everything after, the anticipation of enjoying the plan will be thrown out the window. The sour mood about things not going right can cloud an entire day of enjoyable activities, even when the activities can still be done, albeit a bit late. I know that I have a tendency to feel antsy in anticipation of the schedule not going to plan, even though the spontaneous add-in's are often equally, if not more, enjoyable. Planners can often have blinders on in terms of looking for enjoyment beyond the plan, simply because it wasn't in the plan. It’s about control, or really a lack thereof. Control is a construct that I plan to dive into in future posts, so more on that later.
ADAPTER
You might be sitting there thinking, but I’m not a planner at all! I prefer to go where the wind takes me and I’m happy to adapt as I go along. Naturally going with the flow means you’re not dwelling in the future aka avoiding anticipatory grief. One pitfall for highly-adaptive people to be aware of is adapting to unpleasant or negative circumstances. When you’re willing to take things as they come along, you may look back and find yourself in a situation that doesn’t speak to your true wants or interests. It’s about taking time to check in with yourself, to ensure that you’re genuinely happy where you are. If you can make conscious changes to leave the negative scenario, awesome. For the record, I’m talking about smaller day-to-day concessions in your schedule etc. that are doable, but don’t have your own best interest at heart. It’s about being very clear on the WHY of what you enjoy and checking in with yourself. Additionally, it's possible that adapters, feeling resourceful and capable, don't put in an organized effort to prep for emergencies etc., because they are so in the present moment.
IN-BETWEENER
And then you may find, you’re somewhere between the two sides: planning and spontaneity. I think it’s a continuum, and I think everyone has bits of both, though for some, one category is much more dominant. Here’s the thing, everyone plans for things in some degree, and even mega planners have to go with the flow. The litmus test is to look at something like planning a vacation, both approaches take forethought and some amount of planning (again, some amount of expectation is critical to actually make things happen). A planner may break down each day by increments, even down to the minute, while an adapter may break down each day by a region or city to visit and then see where each day takes them.
There is not a better version; the best version is the one that suits your natural rhythms and energy. Being intentional with your own version is what makes them effective. When you recognize the pitfalls of both approaches, you're more likely to be comfortable having to employ a bit of the other under pressure aka in times of uncertainty. But only with intention. It would, in Julia-logic, follow that INTENTION + SIMULTANEOUS OPPOSING POSSIBILITIES = RESILIENCE.
Having been through a cancer diagnosis, I think both approaches can harmoniously coexist. The diagnosis forced me to throw everything I knew out the window, rebuilding a new relationship to myself, my health, my work, and pretty much everything. Many aspects of my life are different than I had been planning pre-diagnosis, but, spoiler alert, those things are so much better. I won’t say the re-entry process was smooth (I definitely sobbed at my naturopath’s office when we decided I needed to give up grains, dairy, soy, nightshades, nuts, seeds, sugar, fruit, and anything raw aka my entire diet at the time), but it quickly became self-reinforcing, as I started to feel better nearly right away. I was making decisions about my food, sleep, work, and life in general that had my true needs at the core. Turns out when you best understand what you need to feel good, you can feel REALLY GOOD. Who even knew? What I’m saying here is this: I plan for things, but sometimes life has a different version for you to try out, and it ends up taking you to places you didn’t even know where possible. I adapted in a time of adversity, letting my planning self step aside, to allow for things to simply be.
Likewise, if you are an adapter, acknowledge the times where you had an experience that fell short of your hopes. Determine the why behind your disappointment. Was it a logistical issue? Or was it that you agreed to go do that thing your friend wanted that you’re just not interested in? Some adapters are great at setting boundaries for themselves, but it gets tricky when the adapter is a people pleaser, feels peer pressure, or simply doesn’t stop to ask themselves whether they’re happy with the current situation. There is no way to safeguard against disappointments in life, but if you can always act out of what feels best to you (and yes sometimes that includes doing the thing your friend wants to do that you don’t, but you’ve agreed with yourself ahead of time that it’s worthwhile), you are living with intention. Adapters, as you know, I’m a planner, are there other pitfalls you notice that I’m missing? I’m trying my best not to project my planning self by focusing on people in my life who are adapters, but such is my filter on life.
The key is, you can plan and intend for a future you enjoy and feels fulfilling, but you must also acknowledge that it is not a given. You deserve all of the best things in your life, but being a human is just hard. Whether you over plan or don’t plan at all, does not prepare you for the inevitable parts of life you weren’t expecting. But fear not, there is a version of this where whatever happens you feel OK about it. That's where the resilience comes in. When you can hold both planning and adapting as equally valuable paths ahead, you can plan where you want and adapt where you want, even if one category is super dominant for you. You may not love having to employ your non-dominant mode, but you will love the resilience it reveals.
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