A good plan isn’t a prison. It’s a support system.
Yesterday we had our Spring Cleaning for your Creative Dreams call, an epic one hour + 20 minutes meditation + journaling session for checking in with your goals/wishes/dreams for 2026.
(Members: catch the replay here) (Not a member? You can still get this call here)
When we got to the part where it was time to take what we’d learned and use it to make a plan for how we want to approach the rest of the year, one person raised their hand right away to share that they were NOT enjoying the whole idea of planning, that it was brining up a TON of uncomfortable feelings for them and they didn't want to do it and people in the chat were agreeing with them.
We had a really good conversation about it.
I NEVER want to over-ride anyone’s feelings!
People felt overwhelmed and we’d done deep work diving in and looking at how we were showing up for our dreams, and it didn’t make sense to push it in the moment. One of the things I’d said on the call is that I think it would be a good idea to TAKE THE MONTH OF JUNE to incubate on the work we did, gather up the lessons, and use them to sort out how you want to approach the rest of the year.
At the same time… this is a really delicate area.
Because what happens to your DREAM when you say “Making a plan is too overwhelming”?
Are you putting it up on the shelf?
Are you remembering the basic thing about Creative Dream Alchemy? Your dream is either IN YOUR HANDS or it’s on the shelf.
What do we do when uncomfortable feelings show up? We honour them. We work with them. We understand that this Inner Work is a sacred part of the work of making dreams real.
The overwhelm that comes up when we think about planning… is a portal. A doorway into the ALCHEMY.
We can take our time, we can go gently and slowly, we can build ALL the self care in to the process… but if we want to make something happen in our lives, we DO need some kind of plan.
You likely have had an experience where you made a PLAN to do a thing and the plan failed you horribly. If you have been pursuing your dreams for a LONG while this will have happened numerous times.
The feelings that come up there need to be acknowledged and worked with. There is a part of you in there who needs healing.
Because our dreams are so vulnerable, because these things really matter to us, our feelings about this are so heightened so it takes a LOT of courage to do that work. But we know that you’re brave enough.
What I’ve seen happen, with myself and people I have coached, is that once you can get through the terror of feeling the feelings - there is an insight or awareness on the other side of that that WILL make you feel ready to plan again. Like you’ll realize that your plans were too rigid and you need a certain kind of flexibility, or your plans were too loose and you need more structure to fully support you in getting to the next level, or you need to be more realistic about how long it will take to do the thing, or something like that.
Like - that feeling "I AM TOO FREAKING OVERWHELMED TO MAKE A PLAN" is valid... AND... there's a story in there that needs some attention.
So it's not a signal to NOT plan. It's a signal to give your overwhelmed self what it needs.
This is made more complicated by the fact that when it comes to YOUR dreams, there isn’t actually a way to know how to plan to make them happen.
I highlight the YOUR there, because YOUR dreams need YOUR unique way of doing things. So this isn’t an area where someone else can show you how to do it. I know a lot of people claim they can, but they can only show you THEIR way of doing it. And trying to do YOUR dreams, using someone else’s formula for planning, is exactly why so many of us are so tangled up about PLANNING in general.
There IS a “YOUR WAY” to plan but you find it by really listening to yourself about what feels right, being radically accountable to yourself, and to your dreams, and being wiling to do some trial and error along the way. This is going to be overwhelming sometimes!
(This is why I do the Dream Status Report and share it here every week! This is where you reflect and learn and refine the plan in real time! This is why we do a bigger reflection during the monthly Intention Setting Calls, we need this space for a deeper dive into “how is this all going?” so we can learn from our process and, again, refine the plan in real time)
Even then, like I have been sharing in my posts over the last few months… sometimes you’ll get to a point where what used to work doesn’t work now and it’s back to the drawing board.
Planning is right when the rubber is about to meet the road, this is what turns DREAMING into DOING, and so every one of your inner doubts, fears, unhelpful patterns, trauma responses, and limiting beliefs are going to pop up here.
Planning RILES EVERYTHING UP because this is your last chance to stop yourself before you start engaging in real change.
And it sucks, but this means you have to do the Inner Work on those things that come up. The stories that say “I’ve tried this before and failed so why bother” “I’ve never done anything this outrageous before, I’m sure now is not the time to start” “I’m not that ambitious anyway”
What’s the story that comes up for you about why you shouldn’t bother making a plan to HAVE your DREAM?
This story is a doorway into the ALCHEMY.
By sitting with these stories and meetings these “stucks” you transform them, you create new space inside you for taking your dreams seriously, making plans, and following through.
THIS IS NOT A DETOUR.
The Inner Work is the necessary, needed and helpful healing you need to make YOUR plan. The Inner Work is where you’ll learn more clearly what it is about planning that doesn’t work for you.
All of my experience with this tells me: there’s no such thing as “I’m just not a planner” this statement is full of unmet feelings and stories. You may be a highly unstructured or unconventional planner, your plans might not look like anything that anyone else would think of as a plan, but to make a thing happen in your life you have to have a sense of how you're going to do it. This is a plan.
Creative Dreaming is about being intentional in your life.
It doesn't mean always working as hard as you can. You can plan for self care just like you can plan for your most ambitious goals.
If, when you think about planning, you’re thinking spreadsheets and having every minute of your whole day planned out and working harder and exhausting yourself to keep up with the plan… you need a new way of thinking about planning, not to abandon having a plan altogether.
The truth is, planning is not a prison. IT’S A SUPPORT SYSTEM.
It can be “I am going to have leisurely cup of tea on my patio in the morning” “I love the beach! I am going to make a point of going EVERY WEEKEND this summer”
So, after yesterday’s call, I am thinking… we may need to give some attention to the idea of HEALING OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH PLANNING.
(Which ties in the what the soul of the Creative Dream Incubator has been showing me about how to better hold space for dreaming in these chaotic times - a lot of it is about bringing in more structure but NOT structure in ways that constrain, structure in ways that hold and support. More on that coming later this year)
Because yes, there are reasons why RIGHT NOW it’s harder to plan than ever. But for those SAME REASONS it’s vital that we not let go of our dreams.
Having a realistic plan to make your dream happen is a form of self respect.
So really - we could be GRATEFUL when planning feels fraught because it gives us the opportunity to see our next steps with the Inner Work so much more clearly.
One thing we all agreed on during the call is that we don't have the DRIVE and AMBITION and desire to WORK HARD in service to building our dreams, like some of used to...
What I suggested during the class is that we TAKE OUR TIME integrating all the stuff that came up in our epic meditation and journaling session and give ourselves THE MONTH OF JUNE to reflect on how we’d like to approach the rest of the year.
I woke up this morning with some ideas for what I can do to support that.
More to come…
In the meantime, please think about this.
In these chaotic times, you deserve a plan as in a SUPPORT SYSTEM to help you feel the way you want to feel, live the way you want to live and create what you want to create.
(Members: catch the replay here) (Not a member? You can still get this call + join us in this process here) And please leave your thoughts in the comment section below the video - let's explore all of this together!
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