When Changing the Plan Feels Like Failure

Changing the plan can feel like dropping the ball, especially when you’re someone who prides yourself on following through. Dr. J.J. Peterson explores why ambitious people can take changing circumstances personally—and shares three practical questions for deciding what still matters, what has changed, and what moving forward looks like now.

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Dr. J.J. Peterson had just celebrated one year of Badass Softie without missing a week. Then interviews moved, a new client required unexpected travel, school started, and his family dropped their daughter off at college. Somewhere in the middle of it all, he realized he didn’t have an episode ready.

For days, the problem followed him around. He considered skipping the week, renting a studio while traveling, or somehow squeezing in a recording when he got home. Eventually, he landed on a much simpler option: record alone from his hotel room.

The problem had never been that he couldn’t show up. It was that he couldn’t show up the way he had planned. And for someone accustomed to following through, changing the plan felt uncomfortably close to dropping the ball.

When the Plan Changes, We Start Evaluating Ourselves

Plans are useful. They turn ambitions into something actionable and give us a way to measure progress. But when circumstances change, it’s easy to stop evaluating the plan and start evaluating ourselves.

I should have planned better. I should be able to handle this. I said I was going to do it.

Psychologists study how people respond when pursuing a goal becomes difficult. A review drawing on 235 studies examined several forms of goal adjustment, including flexibility in how people continue pursuing something that matters. Read the research on goal adjustment.

That distinction matters. Changing how you pursue something isn’t necessarily the same as giving up on it.

J.J. has seen that on a much larger scale in his own life. At 18, he had a clear career plan: study law, enter politics, and eventually become governor of Oregon. That plan changed dramatically, but the reason underneath it didn’t. He wanted to serve people, and his career ultimately gave him very different ways to do that.

The route changed. The commitment didn’t.

The same can be true when a launch gets pushed back, a project needs to be simplified, or this week’s schedule suddenly stops making sense. Sometimes the plan was built for circumstances that no longer exist.

Changed Circumstances Are New Information

J.J. offers a simple example: you made a plan when you had ten hours. Now you have four.

The temptation is to keep judging yourself against the plan built for ten hours. But those missing six hours aren’t a character flaw. They’re new information, and useful plans need to account for the information you actually have.

That might mean a deadline changed, resources disappeared, a team member became unavailable, a new opportunity emerged, or something important at home suddenly needs your attention. Continuing to behave as though none of that happened isn’t necessarily discipline.

Sometimes leadership requires acknowledging what has changed and making a new decision from there.

There’s also a practical reason to make that decision instead of carrying an impossible plan around indefinitely. Research by E. J. Masicampo and Roy Baumeister found that unfinished goals can interfere with attention during unrelated tasks. When participants made specific plans for those goals, that interference was reduced.

You don’t necessarily have to finish everything today. You may need to decide what happens next.

Grace Doesn’t Mean Lowering Your Standards

Changing the plan can be especially difficult when self-criticism feels like accountability.

J.J. noticed that when someone else needs flexibility, he tends to understand. When he needs it himself, he can become what he jokingly calls a terrible middle manager: “Peterson, we discussed the deliverables.”

There’s an assumption hiding underneath that response: if you give yourself too much grace, maybe you’ll stop pushing yourself.

Research suggests otherwise. In experiments by Juliana Breines and Serena Chen, responding to setbacks with self-compassion was associated with greater motivation for self-improvement. In one experiment, people encouraged to respond to failure with self-compassion spent more time studying afterward.

Grace and accountability don’t have to be opposites. Giving yourself enough room to acknowledge changed circumstances may actually make it easier to determine the next useful step.

That became especially clear for J.J. when he thought about dropping his daughter off at college. It would have been easy to say that life had gotten in the way of his plans, but being there for his daughter wasn’t getting in the way of his life. It was his life.

Sometimes several things that genuinely matter collide. The goal isn’t always to prevent that from happening. It’s to decide what matters when it does.

3 Questions to Ask When the Plan Needs to Change

When the original plan no longer fits the circumstances, J.J. suggests asking three questions before deciding what to do next.

1. What Actually Matters Here?

Separate the commitment from the method you originally chose to fulfill it. What are you actually trying to accomplish, protect, or follow through on?

For J.J., recording in a studio wasn’t the commitment. Continuing to show up and serve the people listening was.

2. What Has Changed?

Look at the circumstances the original plan assumed. Do you have less time, fewer resources, different information, or another legitimate priority that now needs your attention?

A plan made when you had ten hours may not work when you have four. Don’t judge the old plan until you’ve accounted for the new reality.

3. What Does Moving Forward Look Like Now?

The next step may be smaller, later, simpler, or completely different from what you originally imagined. The important question is whether it still keeps you connected to what matters.

For J.J., that meant recording from a hotel room. It didn’t mean his standards no longer mattered or that every future episode needed to be recorded that way. It meant this was what moving forward looked like under the circumstances he actually had.

Sometimes persistence means pushing harder, and sometimes it means adapting. Changing the plan doesn’t have to be evidence that you failed. It may simply mean you paid attention when the information changed.

• Read The Transcript

  [00:00:00] When the Plan Falls Apart

  Dr. JJ Peterson: There is a whole process around making sure an episode of Badass Softie shows up every single week, and this week was no different. That was the plan, and then the last couple weeks happened.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: Welcome to Badass Softie, a podcast for leaders who are unapologetically ambitious and want to lead with heart because you're allowed to chase big goals without losing what makes you human. I'm your host, Dr. JJ Peterson. And um, okay, uh, uh, we have to have a little bit of family time here because, um, if, if you're watching this, um, you can tell, uh, I am not recording this episode where I normally record this podcast.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: I had interviews scheduled, and a few of them had to be rescheduled, and then I ended up landing a new client which was great, but it meant some unexpected travel and some family stuff came up as it does. School started. Uh, we dropped our daughter off at college which just got a little teary thinking about that.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: Uh, if that tells you about where I have been. Um, and wh-which, which by the way is like one of those experiences that you know has been coming for years and then it shows up and you're like, "Wait. Oh, we're doing this now." Now is the time that this is happening So all that's to say life has been full, and there's been some unexpected pieces, some expected, and some unexpected pieces that have come up.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: And somewhere in the middle of the last couple weeks, it became obvious that I did not have a podcast episode ready for this upcoming week. I was frustrated, and honestly even more than that a little bit I felt defeated because, you know, uh, just like two weeks ago we celebrated the one-year anniversary of Badass Softie, and I came out of that episode feeling really excited.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: Uh, we made it a year, and if I'm honest again, that episode was actually recorded weeks ahead of time because I was on schedule. We had made it a full year, and I had not missed an episode yet, and I was ahead of the game. I had it going, and we had all this momentum, and I've had these incredible conversations, and I'm thinking about what year two could become, and I wanted to come out of that anniversary just swinging.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: Great interviews, even better episodes, keep that quality moving. And instead, uh, you might be able to hear or you can see if you're watching this, is that I'm recording this episode in a tiny hotel room, uh, with my computer propped up on a table, and I'm kneeling in a chair so I can be at eye level.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: There's no good lighting, um, just me in front of my computer. And earlier today I genuinely thought, "Well maybe I just don't put out an episode this coming week." You know? And nobody would find me. I would not get punished or anything right? This is me. I set the goal. But I didn't wanna do that. Not because I have some rule that says you must never miss a week or...

  Dr. JJ Peterson: I actually think that kind of thinking can become unhealthy pretty quickly 'cause life happens and you have to make room for that. But I still wanted to show up. My frustration was not that I couldn't show up, it's that I couldn't show up at 100% how I want it. I couldn't have the microphone. I couldn't have the cameras.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: I couldn't have the lights. And I'd have to be a little vulnerable about where I was at It's not that I couldn't show up, it's that I couldn't show up the way I had planned. And those are not the same thing. Uh, I think, you know, one of the things that ambitious people can be really good at is making plans, and if I'm honest, I actually am good at it.

  [00:04:18] The Plan Is Not the Commitment

  Dr. JJ Peterson: This whole past year we've executed the plan, and there were moments where it was really hard work, but we stuck to the plan. Planning is good. Planning is important. But sometimes I think I confuse the plan with the commitment and purpose. Those are two different things. My commitment is to the podcast, and the purpose is to hopefully create a place where people feel less alone and they're inspired to do bigger things, but do it with a big heart.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: And, you know, m- my plan was to interview somebody this week in a studio and make it look as good as possible. That, that plan broke. The commitment didn't, and neither did the purpose. And once I was able to separate those two things, uh, I realized, okay, I have options. I can cancel. Like, that actually is an option.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: Or I can show up and stick to the commitment and stick to the purpose even if the plan and the end result don't look exact the same of what I wanted. And, uh, you know, of course me, I started going, "Well, let me just really think about this for myself." So what does this really mean for me and my future?

  Dr. JJ Peterson: And is there any research around this that actually, like, talks about it? And so I started reflecting, I started journaling, and I started looking into the research. Psychologists actually study something called goal adjustment, and one part of that goal adjustment is what researchers call goal striving flexibility.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: Basically what happens when you're moving towards something you care about, what happens when circumstances change? Can you adjust how you're pursuing it? And this research actually looked at 235 studies on this, and one of the things researchers are finding is that there is a difference between giving up and being for-- being flexible in how you pursue something.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: And when I began to kind of study this research a little bit, I h... It actually, like, this distinction between giving up and being flexible kinda let me drop my shoulders a little bit and take a breath, okay? Because I think sometimes we treat something that actually is beautiful, flexibility, which is honestly a strength, we look at it sometimes like when we have to change plans, like failure.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: Or at the very least, we look at it as, oh, we had to settle because I did something wrong Like, w- we say that we'd exercise five days a week and we only show up for two. Or we planned a launch-- to launch something in September but now it's gonna have to be pushed back to October or we thought the business would be at a certain place by now and it's just not.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: And suddenly we're not evaluating the goal, the commitment or the purpose, we're evaluating ourselves. I should be better at this. I should have planned better. I should be able to handle all of this when it comes at me. And th- that's where I tend to go and honestly that's where I tended to go even in this moment.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: But when you pause and think of flexibility as a strength and not an excuse, you can start asking different questions. The questions look more like given what is true right now, what does moving forward look like? Does the commitment and the goal matter more than how I get there Not what, not what I did.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: You know? Uh, uh, not what I think I should have done maybe three weeks ago when things were like a bit more settled and a bit more ... You know the plan actually fit but what does it look like now? And I think so many times in my life when the thing that eventually happened in spite of my plan looked nothing like what the original plan looked like

  [00:08:35] When Changing Direction Feels Like Failure

  Dr. JJ Peterson: You know my c- my career certainly hasn't. You know I've, uh, y- I've talked about this. I've been a professor. I've been a pastor. I've worked in non profits. I've worked in entertainment. I spent years teaching business and how to clarify message. I've hosted podcasts. I've written a book. Now I'm building Badass Softie.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: And if you had asked a younger version of me to draw up a plan for my career there is absolutely no chance that 18 year old would have drawn this. I had a plan. When I was 18 I had a plan and you may be surprised to hear this but I wanted to go into politics . Yes That was my plan. When I was 18 years old I was actually a legislative aide at the Oregon State Capitol.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: I worked for a representative his name was John Scoon and he was an incredible man and part of my job was I met with lobbyists. I tracked bills through committee. Um, I responded to constituents and I even... Actually there were moments that I wrote pieces, wrote paragraphs or ideas th-that the Representative John actually used on the floor of the house and it was kind of incredible.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: He would actually anytime he used something I had written he framed it for me and gave it to me. And I had this plan: I was going to college; I was going to study law; I was going to come back and there was very specific offices o-- city council then I was gonna be a representative and then eventually I was going to run for governor of Oregon.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: That was my plan. When I went to college my freshman year in my speech class I remember our professor asked us, "What do you want to do in your career?" And I said, "I'm going to be the Governor of Oregon." I was very confident in it Can you imagine what my life would have been like if I was in politics right now?

  Dr. JJ Peterson: Like, in this era, if I was in politics. 'Cause this is the age I probably would have started to become the governor if I had followed that plan. And I prepared for it and I had a path. And I have to tell you, um, I am so happy that I am not in politics. But if I'm honest when I decided to change my path, I did have some time of a little bit of mourning when I chose to become flexible in my plan because I had told a lot of people, "I'm going to be governor."

  Dr. JJ Peterson: And now I was like, well, I'm embarrassed because I'm not actually following through with that. There were people who were counting on me, at least what I thought, to come back and work in their office and help them run campaigns and all these things. And I felt like I was letting other people down. I was embarrassed that I wasn't gonna be governor.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: I mean, that sounds so stupid now but the truth is that's what I felt. But what happened along the way is I realized and I really understood that the whole reason I wanted to go into government was because I wanted to help people. And if I'm most honest, the word that I was using was I wanted to serve people.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: I even have a tattoo on my calf that is a, um, a stool with a bowl and a towel. Uh, the towel kind of hanging over the bowl and that represents, uh, washing people's feet. Um, did I mention I grew up very evangelical? I've done a lot of feet washing ceremonies, not gonna lie. So that was really my whole goal was to serve people, to love people, to help people.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: That was the driving commitment in my life. That was the purpose. And the piece that didn't change was the commitment and the purpose. I've always wanted to serve people. I've always wanted to help people. But along the way I realized maybe politics is not the best place that I can do that. And over the years...

  Dr. JJ Peterson: I, I mean, I remember when I changed and decided not to do that anymore and go into communication because I actually wanted to serve at a nonprofit and help them grow, I actually went through a little bit of sadness and embarrassment and shame because that thing that I'd been talking about and telling everybody I was doing, I had to change.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: How I have served people and how I've showed up to care for people has looked very different over my c- career and it looks very different today, but that commitment stands true So, is the fact that I am not the governor of Oregon a failure? M- most certainly not. But to my 18-year-old self, he may have thought that if I had told him.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: I still serve people in everything that I do, but I've learned to be flexible in how that happens and that's how life works sometimes. You know, we want a map before we leave, but life kind of ends up, you know, handing us about three feet of road and says start walking. And then sometimes it moves the road which is annoying.

  [00:13:52] Why It’s So Hard to Let the Plan Go

  Dr. JJ Peterson: And this week, the road got moved And I started thinking about why I was so bothered that I couldn't execute this plan. Uh, part of it is because I, I care genuinely about this podcast. But if I'm really truthful, there's another fa- part. It's, it's that I felt like if I didn't show up in a studio w- you know, interviewing somebody else with all of the production, that I was dropping the ball, and I don't like feeling like I'm dropping the ball

  Dr. JJ Peterson: And I, I don't like the feeling that I should be doing something that I'm not doing, and apparently our brains don't particularly love that. Um, there's some fascinating research that goes into the idea around unfinished goals. It's really looked at what-- unfinished goals, and they found that when we have a goal we haven't completed, it can continue taking up mental space even when we're trying to do something else.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: You, you know that feeling when you're sitting at dinner an- with somebody and technically you're at that dinner, but part of your brain is still at work? Or you're trying to go to sleep and suddenly your brain decides at 11:47 at night it would be an excellent time to remind you about that email you haven't sent.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: Those unfinished things stay with us, and they bother us, and they take up space. But in follow-up research, they have found that making a specific plan for those unfinished goals could actually reduce the mental interference. You don't have to finish the thing yet. Your brain just needed to know there's a plan, and I love that because sometimes what I need isn't to get everything done.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: I need to decide what I'm going to do with it, and that's different, and that's what happened this week. You know, I was literally on a plane, or I was getting ready to get on a plane first, and I was going, "I don't know what's gonna happen." Like, "I can't do this," and it sat with me on the plane. I was trying to figure out, maybe I can rent a studio in where I was flying to.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: Maybe I can try to cram one in right when I get back on s- Sunday night, and we can edit it right before Monday morning. But when I paused, and this... It actually was a couple days, it took up so much space. Uh, and I just went, "No, record it in your hotel room. Just record it in your hotel room There is something that happens in our brains when we create that small plan for the future, and it-- about when you say like, "I c- I can't do this today, but I know what happens next."

  Dr. JJ Peterson: Maybe in this moment when you're feeling those things, you're already trying to send an email. Maybe you just say, "You know what? I need another week. I need another week." Maybe it's moving something off the calendar instead of staring it at it every day or off your to-do list, right? It's off the to-do list.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: It's coming back later. Maybe it's deciding, I mean, just out of the blue, that the thing you were going to do at a hundred percent this week is actually only gonna get seventy percent because seventy percent is actually what you have this week. Maybe it's making a plan to finish an all-day meeting with a client, drive for an hour and a half to a hotel, set up your computer, and report...

  Dr. JJ Peterson: record a podcast there. That's flexibility. The point isn't that you lower the bar every time life gets difficult. The point is that you stop pretending circumstances haven't changed, because sometimes they have. And this is actually where I actually was like, "Oh, I really wanna record this podcast now," because I started looking at, again, some more research, and this is from Juliana Breines and Serena Chen.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: They did a series of experiments around self-compassion and motivation. I think there's a misconception about self-compassion, because sometimes we hear self-compassion, and we think that means just letting ourselves off the hook. Well, I tried. I did the best I could, whatever. That's actually not what they found.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: In one of their experiments ... Can you hear that car? Outside, it's been backfiring. That's where we're at. That's where we're at. Cars are backfiring. So here's what the researchers found. In one of their experiments, participants failed a difficult test. The people who were encouraged to respond to that failure with self-compassion actually spent more time studying afterwards.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: Across the experiment, self-compassion was associated with greater motivation to improve. In other words, beating yourself up isn't necessarily what keeps you moving. Sometimes grace does a better job Let me say that again 'cause it's something that I need to hear. Beating yourself up isn't actually usually helpful.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: Sometimes grace does a better job. What I am realizing is that I am incredibly gracious with other people when life happens to them. Someone calls me and says, "I'm so sorry, something came up. Can we reschedule?" Of course. Of course you can. A friend says they're overwhelmed. I would never say, "Well, clearly you need a better prod- productivity system."

  Dr. JJ Peterson: No, I would say, "You're carrying a lot right now. Let's take some time. We can do this later." But when it's me, sometimes I become a terrible middle manager, right? Like, "Peterson, we discussed the deliverables." Why do we do that? Why is the voice we use with ourselves sometimes so different than the voice we would use with somebody we love?

  Dr. JJ Peterson: I don't think grace means that the things we committed to stop mattering. I think grace gives us enough room to figure out how to keep going. Grace is for yourself and others a better motivator than beating yourself up.

  [00:20:14] Three Questions for When Plans Change

  Dr. JJ Peterson: And honestly, dropping our daughter off at college made me think about this differently too because I could look at these past couple of weeks and say, "You know what?

  Dr. JJ Peterson: Life got in the way," but that's not quite right. Dropping our daughter off at college didn't get in the way of my life. It is my life. Showing up for friends, completing work that I committed to for clients, making sure my son gets to school on time with breakfast and lunch and his vitamins, these things did not get in the way.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: They are why I do what I do. This is my life. And that's a pretty d- important distinction. I don't want to build a life where I become so efficient at my ambitions that the people I love start feeling like interruptions. Are there times that I have to lean into other areas of my life, like work and travel and commitments?

  Dr. JJ Peterson: Abso-stinkin'-lutely. Yes. One of the things I say is balance is bullshit. You're not gonna balance everything. It doesn't work that way. You do sometimes have to lean one way or the other. But I don't wanna resent my family or resent a client opportunity I worked hard to create because it disrupted my podcast calendar.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: I don't wanna be so committed to the plan that I can't recognize when something important is happening right in front of me. I want a big life. I want meaningful work. I want to make this podcast. I want to be present with my family. And sometimes all of those things are going to collide, like they did for me these past couple weeks.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: But maybe growth and maturity isn't trying to figure out how to keep them from ever colliding. Maybe it's about deciding what matters when they do. So here's what I'm trying this week and very honestly right now with this podcast. When the plan falls apart, I'm actually gonna ask myself three questions, and I want you to think about these three questions when those things all collide.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: The first question is: What actually matters here? What actually matters? Does it matter that I get a perfect podcast out? It does not. Does m-- Do I wanna still stick to my commitment, and do I still wanna serve in this way? Absolutely. So it's not about what's on the calendar, not did I... Not, uh... It's not about what I told myself would happen, would happen, but what am I actually trying to protect or accomplish?

  Dr. JJ Peterson: So the first question is: What actually matters here The second, to give myself a little bit of grace, is to acknowledge this: What has changed? I made this plan a year ago and I stuck with it for a year. But this week some things changed. And I think sometimes we judge ourselves against circumstances that no longer exist.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: You made a plan. You had 10 hours. Now you have four. So that's not a character flaw. That's new information. Use it. So the second question really is what has changed? And then the last question really that I start asking myself is, what does continuing moving forward look like now? Maybe it looks a little smaller.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: Maybe it looks a little different. Maybe nobody else would even recognize it as the original plan. Fine. Keep going. And I don't mean keep going in the like grind yourself into the ground nonsense. I mean staying connected to the thing that matters. There's a difference. And when the circumstances change again, like you have more space or you can be more flexible again and get back to the original, then do it if it still works for you

  Dr. JJ Peterson: That's the thing. Sometimes persistence does look like pushing harder and sometimes persistence looks like adapting and sometimes persistence looks like giving yourself enough grace to say, "This is what I can do today." So... This is what I can do today. This episode is not coming from my studio. It is coming from my heart

  Dr. JJ Peterson: Was that too cheesy? But it's not coming from my studio. There isn't a guest sitting across from me. There's-- This is not-- There's nothing on the production calendar. But maybe there's something kind of appropriate about starting year two of Badass Softie this way because if this show is going to be about being ambitious and human at the same time, then I probably shouldn't pretend that ambition always happens under perfect conditions 'cause it doesn't.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: Life is messy. Schedules change. People need us. Opportunities surprise us. And sometimes the best thing we can do is look at life we actually have instead of looking at the life we planned for and make adjustments and keep moving. And next week I'll be back with another interview. It's already on the calendar unless it gets rescheduled.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: But this week, this is where I am. And I'm glad I showed up I'm glad I'm here, and I'm glad I'm still sticking to what matters to me. So let me leave you with this. May you know the difference between changing the plan and giving up on the thing that matters. May you have enough ambition to keep moving and enough grace to adjust when life asks you to.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: And when the week doesn't look like anything you thought it would, may you find the next thing you can do from right where you are. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to keep you connected to what matters. Because we believe you can be both ambitious and kind, fun and driven, powerful and deeply human.

  Dr. JJ Peterson: Your leadership can inspire, your success can have soul, and your ambition can make space for everyone. That's why you're a badass softy. We'll see you next week. Thanks for listening. Follow and subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Badasssofty.com is crafted by Fruitful Design & Strategy