Is Your Plan Keeping You Stuck?

What if your plan is what’s in your way?

The idea in our mind of how something should be done, how we want to do it, can get in the way of actually doing it.

If that’s the case, then it might be time to release your plan. Let it go.

But then I won’t have a plan. And I need a plan.

Let’s unpack this.

First: Does letting go of the current plan mean you won’t have one?

Maybe letting go of the plan will create space for a new plan to emerge.

How can you see your way to a new plan if you’re clinging to the existing plan?

If the current plan isn’t working, what do you have to lose?

Second: Is it true? Do you really need a plan?

Yes, everyone tells you that you need a plan.

I’m sure you know all those clichés about failing to plan and planning to fail.

What if everyone is wrong?

How often have you had a plan and things didn’t go according to plan — and they still turned out ok?

This happens all the time. We forget about those examples because that message of needing a plan is so prevalent.

Plans are rooted in the past.

The plans we make are based on things we “know” about how to do something or the conditions we will face.

But we don’t know. We assume.

We know what we’ve seen happen in the past and we assume that the conditions and outcomes will be the same if we follow the plan.

Even though the future is not the past.

Plan = Illusion of Control

A plan is an illusion of control. That’s all it is: a framework for believing that we can control the outcome.

If I have a plan it means I am in control.

Sadly, this is not true.

And it’s not a helpful story.

We cling to our plans because it’s scary as shit to admit that we have no idea what’s going to happen and to acknowledge that we have no control.

The tighter we cling to an idea of how something should be, the more we resist how it is. That resistance paralyzes us, and keeps us from responding to the changing nature of our circumstances.

Your plan may be what’s in your way.

What if you trusted that everything would work out?

Trust … that’s a very different type of plan.

Let go of your plan
The way you think it should be
Trust how life unfolds