Crafting a Plan

When you have a new goal, one of the best parts of the process of goal planning is creating a project plan. This is where you sit down with a blank sheet of paper and phase out how you will get from where you are, to where you want to go. You imagine each stage, and what it requires from you, and you see yourself easily walking through each stage on the way to your goal.

This process, which I use for every big goal, helps me envision success. It also helps me quiet my mind, which is often asking, what’s next? Meaning, what it the next thing I need to do to get to my goal.

That question, which I now see as a block to intuitive next actions, presupposes that I am going to follow the project plan. I am not. I am going to allow my natural intuition guide me forward to my big projects. Because that’s a way more fun way to live.

Intuitive next actions are when you do what feels good, and what seems exciting, even if it’s not on your project plan. You see the plan as a skeleton of sorts, and your daily life as the flesh and bone that you fill in along the way. And that’s where the fun is. You take a detour and find a better solution. You feel your way forward, and find that you have more confidence in your decisions. You simply do what comes next, and you don’t waver over what’s the best path. You are on it.

Intuitive next actions are when you do what feels good, and what seems exciting, even if it’s not on your project plan.

Intuitive living is a way of being aligned. It’s also a way to approach life that assumes that life is on your side. It has the added benefit of bringing you experiences you would not have crafted, if you were adhering to your project plan.

Here is where I like to give life a lot of wiggle room. I might determine the direction I am headed, but I try to stay open to experiences along the way that enhance my satisfaction with life. I try to stay aware of where my thinking is going, and then use that as a learning opportunity. I try to stay faithful to my wants, desires, and ideas, because I now assume that those are all good.

I’ll keep crafting project plans, but I will also keep putting them away to see where life takes me. It helps me to see that I can achieve my goals, and I can go with the flow. All at the same time.