Crafting a Plan

We live in a world where we are all urged to plan, to think through future events, and to prepare. We are urged to see what could go wrong, plan to avoid mistakes, and visualize success. We are guided to keep a tight leash on ourselves and to stick closely to the plans we create for success.

Yet here is what I have found.

My greatest successes didn’t come from a project plan. My best moments in life snuck up on me. My biggest fun came about unbidden by me and occurred when I let go of all my project plans. My greatest joys have been activities that I didn’t even realize I would enjoy!

Project plans are a specialty of mine. I can sit and craft a detailed and well-thought out plan to accomplish any goal. I can plan out the phases, see the roadblocks, and do my best to prepare a route to get where I want to go. I have fun mapping out my personal goals, and envisioning my success. Then, I proudly put the project plan in the trash.

Project plans are out of date the moment you create them. They reflect who you are in that moment, but I have found that I am always growing and changing. Project plans are but one path toward a goal, when this infinite and abundant universe offers way more than one of everything out there. Have you seen the stars? Have you noticed the trees? Are we running out of souls to inhabit our planet?

When I lean into the idea that there are infinite paths toward all my life goals, I easily trash my mind-created project plan and allow my own spirit to guide me towards the best path. For me. That’s really what I want from my higher power. Tell me what’s best for me and I’ll head in that direction. Yet even the idea of best seems to negate the abundance, and infinity, that’s available to us.

Which is another reason I trash my project plans. What is best for me today could be wildly different than what is best for me, next week. What I think is a good idea today could be a less good idea tomorrow. What I decide is the best path may soon look like an inferior path, if only I allowed my spirit to lead me. So that’s what I do. I craft the perfect project plan and then I turn it over to be supersized on my behalf.

How’s that going, you might ask?

Well, as of today, I am working two jobs easily and effortlessly. I work my 9-5 job and then I write these posts, send out my newsletters, and craft new courses. As of today, I am happier than I have ever been, more relaxed than I have ever been, and more positive on the future than I have ever been. As of today, I have a whole slew of life goals that I have turned over to my spirit, as a sort of dare that says: Show me what you got. Here’s one way this life could go, but I bet you have some better ideas.

So far, I have never been disappointed with what has walked into my life. So far, I have never said, well, my idea of how this was going to go was better. So far, I have never been underwhelmed by where life has led me.

Letting go of the project plan is the most freeing thing I have ever done, and I wish someone had told me sooner that letting go yielded better results than planning. That turning it over led to more fun than charting my own course. That asking for more was a sensible way to use my project plans. Which is now how I see it. My project plans are like ground floor apartments. That’s all I can see, from my limited vantage point. Once I craft the plan and then make a decision to not follow it, I also allow for a new, higher vantage point to step in and upsize all my goals. Oh, you thought you were creating a blog? That’s just one little corner of the wide swath we’re going for.

Now, when I create my project plans, I have fun using my mind to help me envision success. And I have just as much fun crumbling up that paper and asking my spirit to deliver me a better plan than the one I made.