Make a Little Plan Sam

Moving an idea from dream to reality begins with getting it out of your head

by J.C.Coon 

I recently had the opportunity to attend a Small Congregation Training Day sponsored by the Winchester District United Methodist Church.

The guest speaker was a great fan of the singer/song writer Paul Simon; hence his presentation was seasoned with quotes (or mis-quotes) from Simon’s music. The one that keeps rotating in my brain is Make a Little Plan Sam. The lyrics are about how to leave your lover, and the original words were “Make a New Plan Stan”.

How many of us have ‘lovers’ that we need to leave? The opening lines remind us that “the problem is inside your head.”

“Take it logically; I’d like to help you in your struggle, to be free.” What wise words. Our struggles are often just inside our head, and they hold us hostage. As a writer, I like to sit down with pencil and paper, and with my own hand write out my thoughts. Writing my thought down takes it out of my brain. I like this saying by E.M. Forster: “How do I know what I think till I see what I say.”

Putting my thoughts on paper takes them out of my head (where they often float around in a random pattern) and begins the process of going from a dream or an idea to a reality. Think of putting what is in your head on paper as a comparison to taking a seed and planting it in the soil.

So back to the Plan Sam. We all have dreams/ideas/plans. If we have a Plan Sam it might help us to make better choices. If we take the time to actually put that Plan Sam on a piece of paper (or maybe in your ‘Notes”), it gives you something to look at, a goal to work toward.

Many years ago I gave up on New Year resolutions. I wrote the same ones every year and broke them all before Martin Luther King Day. I think a Plan Sam is a wee bit different than New Years resolutions. A Plan Sam is a lifetime goal. Go big. where do you want to be in 5 years? 10 years? Write it down.

Next write an outline of an action plan. Now tuck it away in your sock drawer. Let it sit there till you run out of socks. Open it up look at it, edit it. Put it back in the sock drawer, repeat. Who knows where that dream/idea/plan will lead you but at least you now have a Plan Sam.

Oh, one more thing we learned in our training session. You actually, right now, have everything you need to make your plan happen. Be creative, use the resources you currently have. Think about it.