Why Planning?

I've noticed a lot of posts recently about my move/life and not so much about my job/career. ;) Sooo, I wanted to answer a question for myself: why planning?

Something that I heard several times near the end of my schooling and when I got hired was: if you think you know what you're doing as a planner, just wait. Tomorrow you'll have no idea. It's that certain unpredictability that is exciting, scary, and just a part of human nature...and my business is people. So sometimes in those exciting/scary moments, it's easy to ask if I'm cut out for this; do I have what it takes?

But I've looked that question square in the face and have decided that I do belong here and I enjoy, quite a lot, what I do. I had to face a fear that even through undergrad and grad education in advertising, specifically in Account Planning, and several internships that showed me many different sides of the industry before I really entered it, I would not like what I was doing or feel like I fit. I don't know why I questioned all of my preparation - those are things I did precisely to see if I would fit. But you never know - this is a really tumultuous time of life and nothing is certain.

So why do I say that planning is a fit? I actually think of new things all of the time..I'll have to write more as it strikes me. First and foremost, I love planning because it is a challenge to me. This is where I'll continue to grow because I will be constantly learning. One of my strengths is that I'm really good at school stuff. In grad school, I learned that meant I enjoyed learning because tests and quizzes were stripped away and it was only about how you think. I don't know everything about planning - I don't think you ever can as you could never understand every single thing about people - so that makes me want to keep learning.

There are other things that I may be really good at, perhaps even better than planning, but it's because it plays off a different strength of mine, such as organization. But it's that those things don't excite me and don't make me want to show up every day...as much as it's a career, it's still a job that you have to do even on your grumpy days.

I found a quote that pretty much guides my way of thinking about life:

If there's passion, it's right.

And it's also pretty cool to tell people what I do and have them be like, really? That's what you do? That's cool!