There’s an old saying, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” and another, “A battle plan never survives first contact with the enemy.” A lot of people like plans, a lot of people put a great deal of emphasis on goals and plans and try to tell you that if you haven’t planned things to the nth degree, you are being foolish and irresponsible and you’re going to wind up drifting aimlessly or destitute, or with some other horrible fate.

That’s also why “Tell us where you plan to be in five years.” is a very common question in interviews. But it’s a terrible one, and one that makes me mad. It does so, because plans are more about feeling in control, than actually being in control. As the bits of folk wisdom I started with indicate, there are so many variables, uncertainties, and random events that it’s virtually impossible to predict the future well enough to make good long term plans.

In fact, plans can hamper you, in that if you have a really good plan that you really like, you can hold on to it too hard, and be unwilling to adapt, modify the plan, or abandon it altogether if circumstances change enough that that is necessary. Flexibility and openness to opportunity are a much better strategy.

John Krumboltz calls this Planned Happenstance, based on the idea that indecision is sensible and desirable, and allows you to benefit from unplanned events. He says that the required behaviors are to put yourself out there to create opportunities, be sensitive to arriving opportunities, and to be prompt and diligent in seizing opportunities. All in all, a much better approach than spending a great deal of time making plans that then have to be thrown out the window. Or worse yet, plans that you get part way through, then need to change, but don’t. Because there’s a plan.

I think I might give that as my answer, next time I’m interviewed and asked where I plan to be in five years. Maybe that will tell me if the prospective employer are as open and flexible as they think they are.