Plan for Success at Work

One tool that can serve us well as we navigate our lives is to plan for success but to do it in partnership with the universe. I call this Universal Planning. This is going to look a lot different from most planning systems as those rely a lot on setting goals with our thinking faculty only and then achieving those goals with lots of effort and will. Effort and will can and do produce results. However, too much of them produce stress in mind, body, and spirit and often the results are challenging to sustain. For true success, we need to embody our desires and open up to what we want to feel and experience as if it is happening now.

Looking at things from a larger frame can often be helpful. The universe is the cosmos, which consists of all matter, space, and consciousness. Its immensity is hard to grasp but the fact that there is a power that has innate and stunning creativity is hard to deny as we look out at the beauty of our planet, and the unfolding events and experiences of our lives. What we can forget is that we are co-creators with this power, and have the seeds of whatever we desire within us ready to be manifested using this microcosmic energy (us) and the macrocosmic energy (universe).

This larger energy has the capacity to arrange events, connections, and synchronicities to deliver our intentions.

The trick is we must make sure the switch is turned to "on" so that we can receive the guidance, intuitive hunches, and connections that are always streaming to us.

We can cultivate the ability to do this through sitting quietly a few minutes a day, walking in nature, and writing in a journal. Additionally, to optimize how this works to assist us, we need to release attachment to how our intention will come to us.

According to Deepak Chopra in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, “One characteristic of the field of all possibilities is infinite correlation. The field can orchestrate an infinity of space-time events to bring about the outcome that is intended. But when you are attached, your intention gets locked into a rigid mindset and you lose the fluidity, the creativity, and the spontaneity inherent in the field. When you get attached, you freeze your desire from that infinite fluidity and flexibility into a rigid framework which interferes with the process of creation.” We have to become more comfortable living in uncertainty while all possibilities are still in play. Deepak believes that uncertainty is a place of great power because we are open and willing to receive.

Here's an example of how this works.

A client of mine wanted to create a new career after more than two decades working for the same organization.

We started setting her intention by defining what skills and talents she most loved to use, and the kind of organizations that made her heart sing. She also identified how she wanted to feel at work and in her teams and work relationships with colleagues and customers. She had just declared the WHAT of her desire. (Translate this into whatever you want to create: donors to your cause, a new home, a perfect partner, more abundance.)

My client released the means to the universe and was willing to suspend her skepticism about whether the shift was even possible. She also asked the universe for help with any questions that she could not answer right now, and things that she could not control. There is a very important principle here: she is in charge of the WHAT of her desire and the universe is in charge of the HOW of her desire.

Through opening up to nudges from the universe and following those to see what happened, she ended up going on a travel/study adventure and is now working in a new field. This was not predictable when we started but fits her well.

The Universal Planning steps are:

1. Set your intention, the WHAT you want, put in your order. Feel what it would feel like if you already had your intention and imagine already living inside your intention. Make a visual representation of your intention if you are having trouble connecting to the feelings.
2. Release your intention to the universe, and ask the universe to help you by making any needed connections to bring you closer to your intention, answering any questions you have, or providing any solutions to problems you are having. Leave the universe in charge of the HOW and stay OPEN.
3. Take any inspired actions you determine will move you in the direction of your intention. Inspired actions are those that feel doable, and sound interesting and fun for you. As you take these different actions, one or more will provide a “click” as you explore them and will lead you down the path to fulfilling your intention.

Have fun with this and get the help you need from Universal Planning!