Life doesn’t always go as planned

You have two choices.

The Path © Kathryn LeRoy

Hello friends,

Does this look familiar?

1. Set a goal.

2. Make a plan.

3. List all the “to dos.”

4. Check the boxes.

5. Monitor progress.

6. Repeat.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve followed this formula in my personal life and my work. How many plans fell apart along the way littering the hopeful path?

The big lie about planning is that it is all about the plan. Every plan, even the ones we make haphazardly each day, can disintegrate in an instant.

Those become an annoyance, but when big plans go astray, we falter, change course, or give up. Our goal and plan is not the problem.

Rather, life’s unpredictability constantly evolves into a new landscape. The world in which we made the plan has changed and so have we.

Just Keep Moving © Kathryn LeRoy

This week, I finished reading Ozan Varol’s Awakening Genius. He doesn’t define genius as extraordinary people, but genius as it comes from the Latin, “the attendent spirit present at birth in every person.”  “Each of us,” Varol contends, “ is like Aladdin, and our genie—or our genius—is bottled up inside of us waiting to be awakened.”

What about those plans we made? What should our genius do when the ground shifts beneath our feet?

I collected a few pointers from Varol to remember when life doesn’t go as planned:

• Forget trying to figure it all out.
  “ ‘Everthting all figured out’ is the end…The movie of your life isn’t over yet. You’re still in the middle of the action, constantly evolving and expanding.”

• Don’t get too attached to your plans.
  “What we cling to defines us—and confines us. We become hostage to our vision of the future.”

• Straight lines only occur on paper.
  “Life is more like a jungle gym and less like a ladder. It defies predictions, logic, and order.”

• You always have two choices.
  “We can spend our days shaking our fists at the gods in a futile attempt to force the universe to deal us a better hand.
  Or, “we can “play the hand we were dealt rather than the hand we wish we had been dealt.”

My goal for this week?

Trust the wisdom within me. Keep the plan, but hold it lightly as a guide. Take the next step. Remember, the gap between where I am and where I want to be will always exist, and that’s okay.

“Because the purpose of life isn’t to be fine
It’s to be alive”
—Ozan Varol, “A life lived carefully”

If I’ve learned anything change is the constant that creates life.

The writer, Isabel Allende has sound advice on how to live passionately—no matter your age. It’s never too early or too late to begin to take her advice.

Change, passion, and living “Life in Color” is my song for the day. Sing along.

“Our next life will always cost us this one. If we are truly alive, we are constantly losing who we just were, what we just built, what we just believed, what we just knew to be true.”
—Glennon Doyle

Blooming Crinum after Rain © Kathryn LeRoy

Find a little wonder this week, make a plan, hold it lightly, enjoy the dance, and live your life joyfully.

With gratitude,

Kathryn

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