It’s almost September, back to school time for many and certainly a time when many of us start new projects and set new goals and targets (or rush to complete the goals we’ve set for the year).
I love to make plans. In the past I would start with great enthusiasm, but if things didn’t go ‘to plan’ I would find it hard to know how to proceed and how to get things back on track. I’d get disappointed and go off track, blaming myself for not doing it right. It wasn’t pretty.
It was partly through my connection with nature that I found another way of dealing with plans unravelling or changing.
I love to garden, to grow vegetables, flowers and herbs. That means that every year I have a plan of what to grow.
It doesn’t always go smoothly. Some seedlings get eaten by pests, some fail to thrive, some do better than expected. As a gardener I quickly learned about the importance of being flexible, adaptable and curious. I had to let go of rigid expectations. I learned to make changes fast, replacing plants that failed to thrive and choosing new ones to take their place.
I learned to expect the unexpected and adapt my approach when there were changes, for example watering more in dry weather or being more vigilant about slug control in wet weather.
I also learned the benefits of ‘mistakes’ and ‘accidents’, as plants self seeded in places I hadn’t planned for them. Sometimes it resulted in amazing combinations, better than I could have dreamt up.That showed me how I can miss out on possibilities when my plans are too rigid and that sometimes so called mistakes lead us to wonderful insights.
If some of nature’s self seeded ideas didn’t work out, I weeded them out and tried something different.
I began to take the wisdom from my gardening adventures and apply it my approach to my work projects, my business and my life.
Thus, my gardening strategies became an analogy for how to plan, be flexible and open to change and possibilities greater than I have allowed for, in all areas of my life, as I share in this week’s video below.
After watching the video, I’d love to hear from you.
How do you respond to your plans changing or not working out the way you had imagined?
Is it easy for you to re-focus and make changes or do you feel lost if you get off track?
Let me know in the comments below.
I now find it quite fun to see how things can work out better than I’d expected when they’ve seemed to have gone off course. I know that if I ask questions, stay curious and remain focused on the outcome I desire, that it, or something even greater can manifest …. and it often happens in ways I’d never have expected or even imagined.
If you’d like some help in planning your life, so that it really works for you and you’re ready to stop being de-railed by set-backs or changes, you can get in touch by email or book a complementary 15 minute session with me to see how I can help you.
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