Why your plans keep failing (not willpower!)

The framework I accidentally found that ensures flexibility over time.

Most of us have experienced this:

You build a plan. In theory, it seems doable, and you get excited. But when it comes to take action, it’s a different story: you barely make any progress.

Then motivation takes a deep dive, and you end up with another failed plan.

But what if I told you you could prevent this before you even start?

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When I stumbled on the framework

I came up with this idea on accident a year ago, when I was working on a different project. Back then, I didn’t treat it as a legit system.

It’s only now that I realized:

I owned a diamond for a year, thinking it was a shard of glass.

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Let me introduce you to the PRO framework!

This framework is a simple, and almost impossible to fail.

You’ll understand it as soon as I tell you what PRO means:

• P as Pessimistic: you imagine the worst-case scenario, when nothing seems to succeed. What can you still do to get the furthest? What are the milestones you can hit even in the worst conditions?

• R as Realistic: this is what you should aim for. The optimal rate of progress, when you sometimes slow down, but still manage to meet most of your targets.

• O as Optimistic: every once in a while, the stars align, and everything seems to work. This route includes goals that depend on previous milestones you need to hit.

The PRO isn’t one plan, but three different paths that adapt to whatever week you’re having.

The hidden power of the PRO framework is that it’s actually harder not to stick to it than to follow the plan. It provides 3 layers of difficulty you can choose from, just like when you choose a difficulty level in a video game:

• The pessimistic is the easy level — the one you can do without having to rely on any external variables, the goals you could hit even when nothing seems to work.

• The realistic is the normal level — the variation that you can realistically hit (as the name suggests), the path that isn’t easy, but is also far from impossible.

• The optimistic is the hard level — the version that requires luck (things out of your control favoring you), the one where hard work isn’t enough.

As long as you can stick to the pessimistic plan, you’ll build momentum, because you progress according to at least one plan of the three.

This kills all-or-nothing thinking, the mindset that ruins most plans.

Summarized, the PRO framework is a flexible system that adapts to your best days as well as your worst ones, building momentum from whatever is available.

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Here’s how I planned my next 3 months

This is how my PRO objectives look like for this winter:

• Pessimistic: have a mature Substack routine, develop MVP app, lock in business model, improve systems (sleep, deep work, AI/internet usage)

• Realistic: growth on Substack, MVP app developed and tested by a few people, noticeably more confidence in coding, reach one advisor (“mentor“)

• Optimistic: secondary platform ready to launch, MVP tested and validated, connect with multiple advisors, reduced AI/internet reliance, strengthened identity

As you can see, the pessimistic route is all about things I can do without external help.

On the realistic path, you can find goals that need external help (like how I’ll need some of you to test my upcoming productivity app), but they’re still realistic.

Finally, the optimistic path requires less obstacles I need to break through (eg, we only talk about a 2nd platform if Substack already runs smoothly).

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If you remember just one thing from this…

Remember this sentence:

The PRO framework works because momentum isn’t built by perfection, but by flexibility.

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Stop planning for the “ideal you”. Start planning for the “real you“.

If this helped and you’d like to read more practical guides, stick around — I share everything I learn from this journey.

See you next time,
Zoli