Plan: Have No Plan
The farther away I get from the day I quit my corporate job as a financial analyst, the more I stumble across these stories: The Flawed Master Plan, The Eventual Demise, The Reassessment, Returning to Childhood, The New Definition of Success.
Maybe it’s because I’m in the same boat, but it seems like all of a sudden this world of brave people has surfaced. People who have taken a plunge into the unknown, uncertain what makes them tick. People who are emerging, free from their layers of blah and societal bullshit, with a valuable offering to the world all their own.
Thank God, because I’m in the early stages of swimming towards the surface of all that blah and self-discovery myself.
Although crafted with my own unique expectations, problems, failures, and courage, my story is the same as yours.
Coming out of college I had one idea of success (financial wealth). Coming out of my corporate career I had another (freedom, forget money).
After college I had a very clear vision of the accomplishments I would achieve to be successful. After my tenure in corporate finance, it was like I had gone completely blind—I had no plan, no vision, no passion to speak of, and absolutely no idea what to do next.
Surprisingly, this lack of foresight saved me from repeating the plan-and-achieve cycle yet again. Right after I quit, I forced myself to spend time doing what made me happy. This was ambiguious. Eventually, I reverted to crayons and markers, stretching and lying around on the floor, reading books and writing diaries.
I reverted to childhood, just in the knick of time.
Looking back on those early days of “finding myself,” I realize how difficult it was for me to enjoy daily life. To actually take ownership of the freedom I had once I quit my job. To use that free time how I wanted, regardless of how productive or “normal” that appeared.
One big problem I had was the little voice inside me that’s so good at detailing the steps I must take to accomplish my plans for success. It would not shut up. I had to actively ignore it. This voice had a very hard time with Plan: Have No Plan.
“No! I don’t want to go to grad school right away!”
“No! I don’t want to get a new job!”
“No! I don’t want to put on pants today!”
“I have ZERO IDEA what I want to do with my life, okay?! Let me RELAX!”
For a while, I thought that little voice belonged to everyone else. I thought it was the unspoken voice of concerned family and friends. I just KNEW they thought I was making mistakes, being lazy, giving up, suddenly destined for failure.
Alas, that little voice was my own. And, it took months for it to stop rattling on and actually let me relax. I’ve since found out how productive relaxing can be.
Fast forward one year of giving in to my inner child, practicing relaxing, and patiently waiting for that annoying little Type-A voice to quiet down, and here I am today.
I can proudly say that I am no longer a financial analyst. Far from it.
I am a yoga, relaxation, and open awareness teacher; a writer; a blossoming small-business owner. I could never have imagined!
Had I succumbed to that nagging voice, begging me to have a plan, I never would have chosen to become a teacher and a writer.
Why?
For one, my working definition of success (financial wealth) would have meant I vetoed the idea as impractical.
For two, after years of studying business books and required curriculum, I had completely forgotten that I liked to doodle and dance and write. I had to relax into my freedom and revert to childhood to figure that out again.
To arrive here today, doing what I want to do for work, required Plan: Have No Plan. It was necessary that I started doing what I wanted to do in order to see what it is that I do best.
Make sense? Hindsight is 20/20. Deciding what the future must hold for you is futile.
If you’re wondering how the hell I became financially stable on my own in only a year, your suspicions are correct — I’m not there yet. But, I’m working in that direction. I’m swimming to the surface of the blah.
These days, all my energy, attention, and time goes towards projects and work that serves ME so that I can serve YOU.
Slowly but surely, a new vision of success is emerging for me. A vision that allows me to be fully me in a world that needs what I offer.
I am bringing myself to the foreground.
I am building on my gifts and learning to share them.
I am accepting opportunities and creating spaces where I am able to teach what I know.
I am being me, for a living.
