By Priyanka Joshi, Student, Banasthali Vidyapith
Have you ever had a stretch of free time,maybe a quiet Saturday or a surprise cancellation in your calendar and instead of enjoying the openness, you found yourself planning the next week, month, or even mapping out conversations that haven’t happened yet?
You might have started organising a meal plan, restructuring your budget, or obsessively mapping out career goals. And maybe, like many of us, you felt a small sense of relief the moment the plan was on paper. It didn’t matter that nothing had changed tangibly. The mere act of planning made you feel just a bit more in control.
That subtle relief is something we all know, yet seldom examine. Why does planning feel so safe? Even when the plan never goes exactly as expected? As someone who’s been doing this for almost over a decade, I can tell you this habit isn’t just about organization. It’s what we in psychology call anticipatory control, and it’s both our greatest strength and, sometimes, our silent saboteur.
The Safety of What Hasn’t Happened Yet
To understand our human urge to plan, we have to first understand uncertainty, and more importantly, how profoundly uncomfortable it makes us feel. From an evolutionary standpoint, not knowing what’s around the corner once meant potential danger.
Our ancestors needed to anticipate what might happen next: If we leave the safety of the cave, will there be food? Or danger? That ability to mentally simulate future outcomes improved our chances of survival, and over time, it became a staple of how our brains are wired.
Fast forward to modern life, and that ancient mechanism is still humming along,though the predators have been replaced by emails, meetings, and social pressure. Still, the brain reacts similarly. It wants to predict outcomes and reduce the potential for harm—physical, emotional, social, and even existential.
That’s the crux of anticipatory control: we attempt to exert influence over a future that hasn’t happened yet in order to make the present feel safer.
The Brain on Planning: A Temporary Calm
Let’s get a bit scientific.
When we create a plan, especially in a moment of stress. We activate executive-level functions in the prefrontal cortex, where decision-making and goal-setting occur.
This pulls us out of more reactive brain regions like the amygdala, which are responsible for fear and emotional response. Simply put, making a plan gives the brain something to “do” about uncertainty, and that activity reduces feelings of helplessness.
You might recognize this in daily life. Have you ever felt a surge of anxiety and dealt with it by making lists? Or avoided a difficult emotional situation by sitting down and plotting out logistics? That’s because goal-setting and planning help focus attention and reframe the
problem. The plan isn’t a guaranteed solution. It just tricks us into feeling equipped, even if contingencies lie ahead.
The Illusion of Control (and Why We Crave It)
Now here comes the twist.
While planning can be a productive, even empowering tool, it can also cultivate the illusion of control. A comforting, but ultimately false belief that if we simply prepare enough, rehearse enough, or think it through thoroughly enough, we can eliminate all risks.
We subconsciously believe that if we preemptively solve every possible scenario, we’ll buffer ourselves against disappointment or failure. But we can’t outthink an unpredictable world. Plans are only ever approximations, and life doesn’t always play by the rules we’ve sketched out for it.
Anticipatory Control as Emotional Armour
Many people use anticipatory control not to get ahead, but to protect their core vulnerabilities. Especially in high-functioning people, planning becomes a way to avoid discomfort, mistakes, vulnerability, and failure.
In psychological terms, this mode of living can sometimes edge into what’s known as Experiential avoidance, the tendency to steer clear of unpleasant emotions or sensations, even at the cost of growth. So instead of allowing life to unfold and risking failure, we stay in the sandbox of planning, perfecting, and preparing. And the world passes by in the meantime.
What makes this coping mechanism particularly sneaky is that it’s socially rewarded. Organized? Responsible? Goal-oriented? We applaud those traits. But when taken to extremes, they can become walls, keeping us stuck in ideas and intentions, removed from action and reality.
Learning to Live Without a Script
One of the hardest, yet most rewarding psychological shifts we can make is learning to trust life even when we don’t have it all mapped out. This doesn’t mean becoming careless or chaotic. It means making room for spontaneity, uncertainty, even serendipity.
Some thoughts to reflect on:
– What if planning isn’t the only way to feel safe?
– What if presence, connection, and adaptability can offer safety too?
– And what would you experience if you paused “doing” and shifted into “being”—just for a moment?
I’ve seen people loosen their grip on control and discover, often to their surprise, that the world doesn’t fall apart when they’re not orchestrating every second. In fact, things often feel lighter, more alive.
When you stop rehearsing and start engaging, the scenes you live in tend to be richer than the ones you imagined.
Balancing Planning and Living: Practical Tips
So how do we harness the benefits of anticipatory control without becoming consumed by it? Here are some strategies I often personally practice:
1. Plan With Pencil, Not Pen
Make your plans flexible, something to adapt, not worship. It’s OK to change the blueprint mid-project or pivot when life throws a curveball.
2. Create Margin for the Unplanned
Leave pockets of time unstructured. Allow for spontaneous coffee chats. Go somewhere new on a whim. The richness of life often lives in these margins.
3. Practice Present-Moment Living
Cultivate mindfulness, even if in small moments: sipping your coffee without your phone, walking without headphones, actively listening in a conversation.
4. Let Things Be “Good Enough”
Not every plan needs to be optimized. Sometimes “done” is better than “perfect.” Letting go a little can feel liberating.
In Closing: You Are Safe Even When Life Is Uncertain
Planning is not the enemy. At its best, it gives shape to our dreams and structure to our goals. But at its worst, it can strangle the spontaneity out of life, keeping us stuck in imagined futures while today quietly slips by.
The deepest kind of safety comes not from knowing what’s next but from learning that you’ll be okay no matter what unfolds.
So plan when it helps. But live more.
And remember: the real magic doesn’t come from the script, it comes the moment you look up from the pages and step into the scene.