Unlock The Hidden Power of Planning

I bashed my head against a wall for 5 months straight.

In November 2022 I decided to restart my Instagram which I abandoned for a year.

I ran in full steam and followed crappy advice.

“Engage for hours or you won’t grow”

“You need a big audience before you can make sales”

“Strive for engagement”

I’d leap out of bed at my typical rising time of 5 am.

Then brush my teeth and get immersed in my morning routine.

This consisted of:

• A quick meditation
• My 5-minute journal
• My reliable peach & mango V8 energy drink

(I refuse to drink coffee)

I was ecstatic to tackle my day, but then the realization kicked in.

I “have” to spend the next 2 hours sending likes and comments

ts to other creators since I posted at 6 am.

I sensed an off-putting sensation in my stomach, but I mustered through anyway.

After the two-hour session I’d go to the gym and cranked out another session when I got home.

Insanity right?

It’s now the end of the day…

My girlfriend at the time asks, “How’d work go?”

I’d pull out the same old “Oh yeah babe it’s going well”

Even though I knew I spent damn near the entire day writing out Chatgpt-level comments.

My posts got tons of engagement back, but I felt drained.

This was my routine for 3 days/week.

The other 4 days of the week I grinded away at school.

This was the cycle for months.

I finally got tired of sending out bland and generic comments to the same bland and generic content.

Why did I spend months doing this?

I became assured it was the way to go.

I believed it was the answer to all the questions I had about social media growth.

I was so obsessed with growth that I couldn’t see why what I was doing was problematic.

I was acting on autopilot mode.

I was an NPC (a non-playable character in video games)

This happened because I was too immersed in the details.

I spent my weekly recaps reflecting on how I needed to skyrocket my followers count.

I wanted to be able to write about the topics that interest me.

I wanted people to say “Oh yeah, this guy knows what I’m going through” whenever I shared a post.

I wanted to have a firm grasp on my schedule because I despise being bossed around.

This is why I strove to make it work.

I zoomed into one area - and made it my goal to crush everybody else at it (engaging).

The problem was that follower count isn’t the pinnacle of a personal brand - mindblowing right?

I couldn’t get this through my thick skull.

I dove far too deep into one specific area of building a personal brand.

My demise came from my inability to see the bigger picture.

I couldn’t see why one dot (engaging) wouldn’t lead me to my star (building an audience).

The fogginess stayed because my weekly reflections became structured that way.

I rarely ever reviewed my big picture.

I rarely ever made sure everything I did was in alignment.

This is what I call the “map perspective” of planning your week - more on this later.

The Impact of Planning

How you plan your week sparks a chain reaction.

Your days stack into weeks.

Your weeks stack into months.

Your months stack into years.

Your years stack into your life’s work.

Your life is built through Sundays.

It's your duty to make the most of your planning.

Big-picture planning is one thing.

Technical or detailed planning is another.

Reflection and planning are only effective if you’re constantly bringing in new viewpoints.

If not, you're stuck reflecting on the same things over and over again.

There are 4 main groups of weekly planners.

"Free" Individuals

You see, some view planning as too rigid.

• They believe it suffocates creativity
• They enjoy being “free”
• They tackle tasks when they feel like it

This group misses the entire point of planning out their week.

They believe that free-flowing is free.

The opposite is true.

Refusing to have some sort of idea of how you want your week to look is anything but free.

You’re susceptible to saying “yes” to more things than you can handle.

You feel the push and pull from:

• Your responsibilities
• Random things that pop up
• The rapid speed of time

Freedom isn’t free - it comes at a steep price.

Nerds of Detail

Another group zooms too far into one point - like how I did.

• They get too caught up in one detail or perspective
• They reflect for hours but fail to consume new ideas
• They believe there is only one way to execute and it’s their way

This group misses out on the big picture.

They have tunnel vision on low-priority tasks.

They tend to over-reflect on a tiny smudge.

This form of thinking kept me in an ongoing cycle that seemed to produce little to no progress.

Self-Induced Procrastinators

Some procrastinate through planning.

They get can get their week rolling, but by mid-week things slow down.

• They feel the need to account for every single hiccup
• They spend extra time “researching” a small detail
• They hesitate to start because of how daunting their plan seems

Obstacles seem more significant than they are because the image of them enhances.

Diving deep into every little hiccup makes them seem more significant.

You put taking action off for weeks.

Once things finally get rolling you realize that the “tsunamis” are more like puddles.

Society's "Victims"

Finally, there’s the worst group.

I call this the “victim group”

• They refuse to plan because “things will go wrong anyways”
• They believe their issues are unique to them
• They run in circles feeling bad for themselves

This group swears everything and everybody is against them.

Every tiny little road bump is somebody else’s fault.

There’s no accountability or ownership.

These groups fall into the “map perspective”

The perspective locking you away

You see, I’ve been in all the groups I mentioned in the previous section.

At the beginning of high school, I fell into the victim group.

I believed my bad Spanish test grade was the teacher’s fault.

I believed the smart honors students were out to get me - I was jealous of them.

I always looked outward and compared myself even when I got good grades.

Near the middle of high school, I believed planning was rigid.

I enjoyed the “freedom” to choose what I wanted to do and when to do it.

As a result, I got pulled in all directions by:

• Trying to keep good grades
• Hanging out with friends
• Finding time for myself

I was pretty miserable, to say the least.

Starting out in college I matured a bit and got into planning.

But I overthought everything.

I saw ghosts around every corner.

I thought everything that could go wrong will - I spent extra time planning because of this.

And very recently I fell into the group of tunnel vision.

All 4 of these groups share one commonality.

They view things through the lens of the map perspective.

The Map Perspective

Let's say you're going to a friend's wedding and need to try on some clothes.

If you look in the mirror and see you're wearing purple pants and an orange shirt what are you going to think?

You look goofy, right? (If you can pull that off let me know)

Mirrors give direct feedback.

You physically see that you're wearing a weird outfit - you go change out of it.

Life isn't as reflective as a mirror.

Feedback isn't always direct.

You need to find the hidden pieces of the puzzle...

And put together the puzzle on your own.

The map perspective is a narrow way of viewing things.

Sounds counterintuitive right?

The definition of a map is a diagrammatic representation of an area of land or sea showing physical features, cities, roads, etc.

All the dots on your map represent a diversion from your end goal.

These can be:

• A new intriguing project (distraction)
• Lack of time (resource)
• Needing to get better at a skill (upskill)
• Sudden change (uncertainty)

Imagine it as taking a magnifying glass and zooming in up close on your goals and problems.

When you come across a dot you feel a nagging urgent need to address it.

You don’t sit back and question whether it aligns with your big picture.

You fixate on the dot rather than the star.

Earlier I shared that a big goal of mine is to grow my personal brand - the first dot I encountered was social media growth.

I didn’t sit back and question whether prioritizing social media growth would launch me to my big-picture goal.

I assumed it would - because that was the first dot that leaped in front of me.

Can you see how narrow and restricting this form of thinking is?

You get tossed around by your obstacles, responsibilities, and circumstances.

You have very little control.

This form of thinking can impact other areas of your life as well.

Let’s say you’re new to the gym and want to build up muscle.

Your big-picture goal: build up muscle.

The first “dot” you’ll come across is showing up at the gym.

You’re fearful of the glances from other gymgoers.

Your exercise list feels like an encyclopedia.

This first dot is daunting to plenty of gym newbies.

You become obsessed with creating the perfect workout plan.

You feel the need to know exactly how every machine works.

You sense the eyes of the 6’5 250 pound gym bro drilling into the back of your head.

All this builds up and guess what happens?

You don’t go.

The map perspective forces you to address every single dot as they pop up.

I’ve been going to the gym for over 5 years now.

Whenever a friend asks me how should they get started at the gym I respond the same way every single time.

“Just go”

That’s all it is.

You don’t need a perfect workout plan.

You don’t need to have the perfect form right away.

The gym bros aren’t going to shove chicken and rice down your throat.

Get used to going and THEN get immersed in building up your splits and routines.

This way of doing things gives you more control.

You become the one who chooses whether you need to address the dot.

The dot becomes less daunting because you’ve zoomed out.

You become resilient to road bumps.

You execute your mission even when things get foggy.

Your shell hardens and the things around you don’t impact you like they once did before.

You feel fulfilled - because you’re convinced you’re inching your way to the finish line.

This is what it’s like to embrace The Compass Perspective.

The perspective that launches

When I came to the realization that spending hours sending out comments wouldn’t cut it I snapped.

It was a massive sudden change - I experienced a good amount of denial.

“What do you mean this isn’t it?”

“What about all the hours I put in?”

Yeah, I was all over the place.

My habits began to deteriorate as well.

I skipped a few days at the gym every week.

I’d start eating more taco bell (looking back that stuff was nasty).

I’d stay up well past midnight binge-watching anime.

On top of all that I was also dealing with a breakup.

That shit wasn’t fun.

After tons of reflection and consumption - I realized my form of thinking wasn’t going to cut it.

I realized I was far too immersed in the technical details.

I cared too much about the things that don't matter.

I needed to step back and view things from a big-picture perspective.

“If only…” I thought.

I finally began to use my Inner Compass.

Your Inner Compass

Unlike the map perspective that restricts - the compass perspective expands.

When you’re striving toward your star you’ll come across plenty of dots.

Your priority should be to decipher which dots are worth addressing.

In the heat of the moment, it’s easy to turn a puddle of a road bump into a tsunami.

One of the most immediate dots of building up a personal brand is audience building - that’s why I got hooked on social media growth.

The compass perspective is a way of taking the big picture and relating it to everything you do.

Some call it alignment.

Every action you execute connects to your star.

Your compass guides you toward your star.

In the act, you reject things that aren’t in alignment and dim down their significance.

This doesn’t mean you refuse to give your relationships, other goals, hobbies, and mental space the time of light.

It means you reject all the tiny hiccups that come up as you’re striving toward your star.

Let’s tie this back to the gym example.

The person with the compass perspective acknowledges:

They have no idea what they’re doing.

But what sets them apart?

They don’t care.

They’re willing to use the 10-pound dumbbells to start because starting out requires them to do so.

You can’t get good at something without sucking at it.

Michael Jordan got cut from his high school basketball team.

If he got cut - then it's okay for you to suck at the beginning too.

This form of thinking takes practice to adopt.

Like any other skill, you won’t be able to drill it in overnight.

It will take years of practice.

But how does all this connect with how you might plan out your week?

Boldly plan

The art of planning your week is a fluid process.

92% of people die before fulfilling their goals and dreams.

What’s one of the things that the remaining 8% do to actualize their goals?

They use a feedback loop.

Planning out and reviewing your week is exactly how you create your own.

Don’t think you have time to plan out your week?

Make time.

Don’t have any goals?

Set some.

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Here’s my free notion template to start building up your life’s portfolio:

• Organize & stay on top of every area of your life
• Effortlessly plan out new projects
• Create a creative bank to never run out of ideas
• Simplify task management

(The Second Brain for you productivity nerds)

It’s a good starting point for adopting the compass perspective.

Gimme the free second brain template

Now let's dive into The Compass Framework...

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The Compass Framework

The compass framework is something I incorporate into every weekly reflection.

It aids you in grasping what happened the previous week.

It identifies the needle mover activities you’ll need to check off next week.

But the best part?

It takes less than 10 minutes to do.

There are 4 components in The Compass Framework Lessons Ideas Application Questions

Limit yourself to only 5 points per component.

This forces you to only choose the points that align with your star.

Lessons - The Essentials

Capturing the lessons you’ve learned and noting them down is how you elevate yourself.

These lessons can be:

• A breakthrough you had
• A brand new perspective
• An answer to a dot
• A realization that you were stuck on a dot

Once you’ve written down the lessons you’ve learned you’ll move on to your ideas.

Ideas - The Expansion

What new ideas can you come up with from your lessons?

Your ideas are concepts you need extra time digging into before you apply them.

A few ideas are:

• Changing up your nightly routine
• Laying out a new habit
• Improving the systems you have in place
• Spending alone time to let your mind wander

Your ideas are designed for you to reflect on during the upcoming week.

You’re planting seeds that you’ll water soon.

Apply - The Execution

These are the things that you’ll apply in the upcoming week.

These can be drawn from your “ideas” list from the previous week.

Or they can be drawn from a spark you had throughout the week.

You might even come up with one on the spot.

Whatever it is the key is execution.

The longer you wait the higher the risk you’ll never do it.

Here are some examples:

• Going on walks
• Spend time daily consuming new ideas
• Install a cutoff time for your work
• Picking up a new book

Questions - The Examination

I’m a huge advocate for questioning anything and everything.

Probing at my thoughts has allowed me to reach plenty of breakthroughs that seemed obvious.

Question why you hold certain values.

Question the media.

Question the motives of everyone around you.

Question the thoughts that leave your stomach churning.

How can you be free and fulfilled if you’re ruled by the thoughts and values of others?

This skill takes time to incubate - you won’t become a philosopher after one session.

And that’s okay.

Lifetime mastery requires lifetime patience.

Lifetime Practice

Using a mere 10 out of the 10,080 minutes you have in a week can change the trajectory of your life.

Why don’t people do it?

Beats me - they’re missing out.

They might be dealing with one of the many dots we all inevitably have to face throughout our lifetime.

Planning out your week diminishes your dots.

Viewing things from a Compass Perspective points you north.

Applying The Compass Framework keeps you on the right trail.

Stack these up together and you’ll never be derailed by the hardships you face.

Happy executing.

-Trung Dao

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