When Life Defies the Business Plan of Personal Dreams
Last Updated on 21 October 2025 at 09:29
Picture this absurdity of corporate life. Quite often, we are confined in an austere room with a monotone colour scheme and uninspiring furniture. During meetings, alongside you are the finance team members from your organization, including one whose wet cough serves as an auditory backdrop to the setting. This looks like the quintessential corporate escape room.
Now, let’s peel back the layers of irony.
Are you solving problems or manufacturing them ? Are you a consultant or just an employee sold with such a title to avoid social taxes ? Are you running away from challenges or walking right into them ? Does the organization intend to send a subliminal message that there’s no real ‘escape’ ? What’s your future ? Are you afraid of layoffs ?
You’re not alone if you catch the dark humour.
But it’s interesting how the enthusiasm to tackle Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can be oblivious to the existential questions raised by such team-building exercises. It’s the difference between seeing a job as a source of income versus a wellspring of identity. This dichotomy speaks to a cognitive dissonance that can unravel even in the most lucrative of professional settings.
The new corporation you’re part of seems to have all the bells and whistles — stunning office spaces, impressive paychecks, sometimes a couple of smart and engaging colleagues, and forward-thinking managers. Herein lies the problem: how can you sit in your car, looking out into the morning sun with a sense of looming dread, when everything on the surface appears to be near perfect ?
Deciding to quit requires navigating a labyrinth of ambiguity.
It involves stepping into an unknown that questions the decisions leading up to that point. The exit conversation with your supervisor isn’t just an HR formality but a personal decision to jump into the unknown. When asked about your next destination, a vague “taking some time” can mask an array of unspoken intentions, aspirations, and fears. But, what you withhold in saying is the clandestine venture into a new business and an imminent career pivot. So, despite being hidden in existential worries and uncertainty, here we have the first steps into the abyss.
The discomforts of uncertainty resonate long after the farewell emails have been sent and the exit interviews concluded.
Sometimes, it takes an interaction with someone who has faced the vicissitudes of life head-on to help us recalibrate our mindset. Picture yourself sharing a drink with someone who has experienced the highs and lows — divorces, accidents, economic layoffs, and strong losses — yet still bleeds an indomitable spirit.
The simple mantra “Sometimes, things just don’t work out” becomes a totemic guide through the labyrinth of life’s challenges.
Whether embarking on a new career or building relationships, our minds serve as drafting boards for various life plans. These blueprints are an attempt to control chaos, an innate need rooted in the DNA of homo sapiens. It’s a stoic reminder that chaos is not a deviation but a mainstay of human experience. Your discontent is not a solitary ordeal but rather a shared human condition, tangled in the tapestry of universal hardships like divorce and career shifts.
However, as Mike Tyson elegantly phrased it, “Everyone has a plan—until they get punched in the mouth”, which was a variation of Joe Louis’s old saying, “Everyone’s got a plan until they get hit”. Those words echo the sentiments of Prussian military strategist Helmuth Moltke, who rightly claimed, “No plan survives contact with the enemy”.
The point here is clear: uncertainty doesn’t wait for an invitation.
The wear and tear of life are unavoidable. Mechanical failures within your home can serve as a microcosm of greater existential breakdowns. The art of survival doesn’t lie in dodging these hiccups but in developing a coping mechanism robust enough to absorb them.
The idea to retain is not to avoid planning but to acknowledge the futility of envisioning a future devoid of unexpected challenges.
While we may not control life’s oscillations between tranquillity and turbulence, we can certainly adjust our sails. When we reshape our expectations to accommodate the unpredictable, we develop a robust emotional framework capable of surviving the frequent ‘breakdowns’ that life throws your way.
If we were to lift the veil and peer into the existential dialogue between you and your younger self, the prognosis would be grim yet liberating: Everything might go wrong, and that’s okay. But sometimes, those wrongs are right in the end. This liberation lies not in stoic isolation but in the comfort of human destiny.
There’s an indelible certainty that life will unfurl a series of challenges. The universe, or whatever orchestrates our ephemeral existence, will assuredly throw down a gauntlet for you to navigate. Rather than wallowing in the imminence of ‘bad things’, sometimes we can defy the ‘destiny script’.
Confronting life’s complexities with a defiantly hopeful stance is a great approach in the professional life and startup ventures.
It’s less a guidebook and more a reflective mirror, urging us to look beyond the immediate discomfort and find enduring solutions to the intrinsic questions that plague our professional journeys.
Preparing for a career end, relational shifts, a new venture, or sudden health problems isn’t an exercise in pessimism but a strategic manoeuvre in the game of life. The objective is to face life’s challenges — not with an air of resigned fatalism but with a defiant grace that stands its ground against the storm.
At the intersection of your professional aspirations and life’s unforeseen turns, your true spirit is tested. In that moment, how we react shapes not just our character but the narrative of our existence.
When faced with a big decision, our emotions shout, “GO” or “WAIT”. It’s like standing at a crossroads without a map, relying on gut feelings to point the way. Sometimes, the urge to dive in or pull back feels overwhelming, especially when we’re on our own. Do we flow along and see where life takes us, or do we stop and really think about our next move ?
Decisions, especially during tough times, reveal a lot about who we are. So, when life tosses you a curveball, take a deep breath. Remember, every choice, big or small, shapes our journey. And when you’re at that crossroads, trust yourself. Whatever you decide, you’ve got this freedom of choice. Let’s just say it’s the most authentic form of experiential learning, shall we ?
Elena Debbaut is a strategic execution expert to boards and executive teams. She leads and advises on complex transformations when governance barriers, internal politics, or structural fragmentation prevent organizations from executing critical decisions.
Specialities:
• governance-constrained transformation
• operational restructuring
• strategic recovery & execution