Do This to Reveal Something Better

Ep: 193

Do you always have a plan for everything? 

For type-A personalities, planning might give you a sense of control and comfort. But life doesn’t always happen according to plan.

Predicting the future is impossible, so applying regimented plans to a future that is unknown might actually be holding you back.

In fact, when you loosen the reigns and stop trying to control exactly how things should go, you might just find something better.

Today on The Bridge to Fulfillment, Blake reveals why planning can sometimes prevent you from actually achieving your goals. By focusing on what you expect things to look like, you might be missing the golden opportunities that are right in front of you.

In this episode, you’ll learn why planning doesn’t always get you where you want to go, and how it could actually be hindering your progress. You’ll hear how career coaching can help you let go of the things you can’t control and clear the path toward finding the changes you seek. By choosing a different path than the one you’ve always traveled, new opportunities will open up.

Sometimes, you just need another perspective in order to recognize the gold at your feet.  

What You’ll Learn:

  • The impossibility of predicting your future (1:41)
  • Why the need for control can hinder your desire for change (3:23)
  • When it makes sense to plan versus when it doesn’t (6:13)
  • How you can start to challenge your assumptions (7:13)


Favorite Quotes:

  1. If you are a type A planner, pride yourself on being responsible, making sure you consider all the angles before you take action, then you are likely stunting your ability to truly create the results, impact, and life that you want.
 –Blake Schofield
  2. We can’t know what’s possible for us until we expand our perspective.
 –Blake Schofield
  3. Whether you want to achieve a new goal, create change in your life, or just reach your highest potential, it starts by letting go of your attachment to the outcome.
  4. As long as you’re taking steps forward toward the goal that you want, how it comes to fruition doesn’t really matter.

 


Additional Resources: 

Rather than hoping the grass will be greener, identify what the RIGHT next step is. 
We can help you do just that. 

Get clarity on where you are on your journey to career fulfillment, where you’re headed, optional paths to get there, and the right next step to take.

Start your complimentary, Personalized Career Fulfillment Plan by going to www.thebridgetofulfillment.com/plan

Want free resources to set your job search up for success? You can get them by going to: https://thebridgetofulfillment.com/mistakes

Transcript

Blake Schofield 0:05
Hi, I’m Blake Schofield, founder and CEO of The Bridge to Fulfillment, mom to three, USA Today top 10 professional coach, and former corporate executive who got tired of sacrificing my life for a comfortable paycheck. My mission is to expand women’s perspectives and empower them to achieve greater impact at home and work without sacrifice. This is The Bridge to Fulfillment.

Blake Schofield 0:39
If you are a type A planner, pride yourself on being responsible, making sure you consider all the angles before you take action, then you are likely stunting your ability to truly create the results, impact and life that you want. All without even knowing it. You see, we’ve taken a principle that applies in certain circumstances. And we’ve applied it to all because what you have to do inside a school, a big company or a large organization, actually is the thing that stunts individual growth and progress. Today, we’re going to talk about how not to hold tightly to plans and instead, leave space for something better to appear in your life.

Blake Schofield 1:25
One of my mentors Jeff Moore says “you are only limited by your ability to ask a good question.” I add to that “to the right person.” Because the reality is we can’t know what’s possible for us. Until we expand our perspective. In life. We’re constantly faced with new challenges, new problems, new things to solve even more. So now I think in the last 510 years with technology and all the things that are shifting, but the problem is, it’s very difficult to solve for something that you don’t even know exists.

Blake Schofield 1:58
And yet we walk around believing that we know the way things will go we have a crystal ball. And that if we can just control the outcome. By analyzing every option by looking and making sure we do all of our due diligence, then we will be successful, we get trapped, believing that there’s only one way to achieve what we want. And it’s through planning, and seeing all of the variables and how to make it happen. And yet there’s been so many of the greatest inventions and greatest things that have moved us forward that almost no one could have conceived of think about it not to age myself. But very recently we were talking about the internet, and how in the late 90s, right, mid to late 90s. People were like what is that that’s a complete and utter waste. No one will ever use this internet to buy things or go shopping or search things. And yet, it’s so integral to the way we live today. Think about the iPhone, and how that has changed people’s lives. Whether you have an iPhone, or you have an Android, the reality is you now have a personal computer you carry around every single day that now acts as your camera, and now acts as your phone. And it now acts as your computer to access pretty much anything that you want. Very, very few people would have actually conceived that it was possible, much less technology that will completely change the world. And yet, when we go about trying to do something for our lives, we act as if we have to know everything. And we have to be able to conceive how everything will work out. So whether it is that you want to achieve a new goal, create change in your life, or just reach your highest potential. It starts by letting go of attachment to the outcome, or feeling that you have to know exactly how things are going to go. Now I’ve insured about you hear that and you may feel a little uncomfortable. Yesterday, I was on a call. And one of the women actually said this makes me feel uncomfortable. And I said awesome. Because if there’s something I’m seeing that makes you feel uncomfortable or is triggering you it means that you have a belief system sitting behind that. What I consistently see and certainly what I experienced is a very high Fact Finder is somebody who is a recovering perfectionist type A is that to me to not have everything organized and planned out and thought through made me incredibly uncomfortable. Why?

Blake Schofield 4:25
Because I felt like those things gave me a sense of control, a sense of control that I would be able to create what I wanted, but in reality, I never really had control anyway, think about it. How many times have you done everything right? And yet still not gotten the outcome in life that you expected? You worked so hard for something you did everything that people told you you should do and yet you still didn’t get the outcome you wanted.

Blake Schofield 4:51
On the flip side, how many times does something just come to you that was completely unexpected and amazing. And you didn’t have to work hard for it.

Blake Schofield 5:00
And then from a third angle, how many times did just time and randomness just bad stuff happened a car accident, whatever else that you had zero control over? I bet if you stop and think about those three scenarios, you’ll realize that you’ve had all three happen in your life. Why am I sharing this with you, because I want you to realize you are never in control anyway, it’s always been an illusion. And what if, in fact, all of the time and energy and work that you have put into building out these elaborate plans, doing all of your due diligence, making sure you know exactly how you could create what you wanted in your life, actually, was unnecessary to the degree that you’ve been doing it, that you’ve actually spent a lot of time and energy, trying to validate the thing you knew, intuitively, you wanted to do, but didn’t know how, you know, when we work inside large organizations. Of course, it makes sense that you have to have project management plans and all of this built out, because usually you’re dealing with hundreds of 1000s, if not millions of dollars, you’re dealing with hundreds or 1000s of people, it would be too hard to be able to be that nimble, inside an organization because of the complexities of resources and people. But often we don’t stop and realize, okay, just because that applies in one scenario doesn’t mean it should apply everywhere. Because the reality is having to be that planful. And that structured actually stunts possibility and growth. Look at it, you can see it inside organizations, how much more nimble are startup organizations, how much more movement and trajectory and change and innovation can a startup company create, versus a very large organization substantially more, right, because they don’t have the same level of barriers, the same thing happens to us personally, when we create all of these barriers about how things have to look how they have to happen, we stunt our ability to actually achieve what we want. But we also very often literally step right over the goal that sitting at our feet, because we don’t see it. And instead, we spend a lot of wasted time and energy making things hard, when they could be so much easier. So today, I challenge you to maybe just start testing your assumptions, that maybe it could be a little bit easier that maybe in fact, by just having a Northstar, and taking small steps towards the path that you want, that you can get where you want to go and maybe even more. And if you want, you can start with a loose plan. But leave space for something better to show up. Because I can tell you in the last five years, I’ve had so many amazing things come my way. And the vast majority of them I could have never predicted or seen.

Blake Schofield 7:47
And in fact, I can tell you now looking back that there are so many things that I missed, literally the gold sitting right in front of my feet. But I couldn’t see it because I was so focused on what I believed the right outcome had to look like. And it didn’t fit that picture. And so I didn’t even pursue the opportunity I’ve insured about in your life today, you have gold sitting right in front of your feet. But maybe it doesn’t look or feel exactly like what you expected. If you can open up your mind to the possibility that it could be easier that there could be many different pathways to get where you want. And as long as you’re taking steps forward towards that your goal that you want. How it comes to fruition doesn’t really matter. In fact that there may be a much simpler way to get there than even today you could conceive of and if you allow yourself the space and the opportunity to be open to what that might be. You may very well find amazing things on the other side. Thanks again for joining me. Until next time, have a great week.

Blake Schofield 8:57
Thanks for joining me today. Rather than hope the grass will be greener identify what the right next step is. We can help you do just that. Get clarity on where you are in your journey to career fulfillment, where you’re headed, optimal paths to get there, and the right next step to take. Start your complimentary personalized career fulfillment plan at www.thebridgetofulfillment.com/plan  Again, you can get your personalized career fulfillment plan at www.thebridgetofulfillment.com/plan Thanks again for joining and have a great week ahead!