What If Life Doesn’t Need to Go According to Plan?
How the hell did I get here?
It’s a question I’ve been asking myself lately — and the more I think about it, the more I realise something rather interesting.
Some of the things that matter most in my life were never part of the plan.
Hypnosis certainly wasn’t. Neither were some of the people I’ve met, opportunities I’ve stumbled across, friendships I could never have predicted, or the directions my life eventually took.
And yet, those unexpected moments often turned out to matter enormously.
So perhaps the answer isn’t to stop planning. Planning can be bloody useful. It gives us direction, reassurance and something to work towards.
But what happens when we become so attached to the route that we stop noticing the possibilities appearing along the way?
In this deeper dive, I explore the difference between having a plan, choosing a direction, and remaining open to what life puts in front of us.
And I share one of the ways I’m working with this in my own North Star exploration — using my puzzle book to ask some deceptively simple questions about the life I’ve lived, what I’m grateful for, what really matters to me, and what direction might be worth exploring next.
Because maybe we don’t always need the whole bloody map.
Maybe we need to know the direction… and remain curious enough to notice what appears.
Listen in, have a think, and see what your life might be trying to show you.
And please share your appreciation by sharing the episode: https://personaldevelopmentunplugged.com/491-what-if-life-doesnt-need-to-go-according-to-plan
And if you want to watch me recording this episode https://youtu.be/BYNBv_KI5-w
Shine Brightly 🌟
Paul
Hey there! I’d love to hear from you—questions, feedback, requests—all welcome. Drop me a line or leave a comment. If you’ve enjoyed this episode or any other, please share and subscribe! You can reach me at feedback@personaldevelopmentunplugged.com.
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And the transcript WARNING if you’re a lover of the written word this may make you frustrated or angry – you have been warned – is it an ‘ism
Have you ever, ever, ever, ever thought when you look back at your life and ask this question, how the hell did I get here? How the hell did I get here? It’s an interesting question, isn’t it? I’ll bet you have never asked it, but I’m asking it now.
How did I get here? Because you see, when you examine it, so much of what matters in life, I think, was never on the roadmap. So, if you like, say that again, if you’re like me, you might just say to yourself, I know I had plans, I had trajectories, I knew where I thought I was going, and yet, some of the things that changed my life the most, I couldn’t possibly have planned. They were so far over the horizon, there’s no way I could see them.
You see, NLP wasn’t supposed to lead me here. It was supposed to lead me into being a kick-ass business person. And I went to a particular guy who was going to train me and I spoke to him many times saying, I want to come and do NLP with you, proud of it, he was a brilliant man, fortunately he’s up in the heavens now.
And he said, no, Paul, you can’t, you have to learn hypnosis first. And hypnosis was not on my horizon. It’s never, or was never on my horizon, I didn’t even know what the bloody thing was.
But he said, you know, you’ve got to come and learn hypnosis first before you can do NLP. So I thought, oh bugger, I know he’s such a good man, so I’m going to learn it. And the thing was, something bloody happened.
It was in about the first day, I had this realisation, what a dick I was, to think this was NLP and that was going to make me this kick-ass businessman. Because I was going to try to use it as hacks and, you know, all the tips and tricks and all that stuff you hear about manipulation. And what a lot of bollocks that was.
I had this realisation, this aha moment, I’m a dick. Let’s just learn. Because there was so much more to learn.
And what happened? Tell you what happened, which was so far off the horizon. I learned hypnosis. I did learn NLP, I did do lots of business with it.
And then I carried on, but created hypnosis clinics, did trainings, taught people, helped people, did all sorts of stuff, which was never on my bloody horizon. Never planned. Then there was another time, another time in my life when I was doing some work and I got a phone call from a guy I sort of knew.
I’d worked with him before, but he was like in a different company and he worked for us and things like that. And he just phoned up one day and said, Hey, Paul, could you help me out? I’ve got this job and it’s near where you live. Can you pop in on a Saturday morning, just for the next month or so and do some work for me? So I said, yeah, sure.
Why not? And that’s what I did. That little invitation. And then he said to me one day, thanks for doing what you’re doing, but do you know somebody who can come and help me full time? Because my business is growing and I need this type of help.
And I said, well, have you thought about asking me? And he said, would you do it? You wouldn’t do it, would you? Because you do other things. You know, you’ve been a director. No.
Is that really you? I said, well, ask me. And he did. And I said, why not? Why not? Done everything else.
This is another path. And what did it lead to? 15 years of working somebody who we never had an argument with. We never had a formal agreement, but we never fell out.
We never did any crosswords, which is so weird. And he became a real friend. I never had friends at work.
I had colleagues. Yeah. But not real friend friends.
But he was a friend I could really turn to whenever I needed to. He was there. And so far beyond my horizon, all from, well, why not? Now, have a think about this.
Let’s put the spotlight on you for the moment. Yeah. In a nice way.
In a nice way. I want you just to consider something. You may want to come back to it after as well, but just take time to consider how much of your life was actually planned? Not the obvious stuff, because obviously, I had plans in my business and things like that, because you have to have some plans.
But think about the people you’ve met. Think about the opportunities you’ve come across serendipitously, if I could say the word. The places you’ve lived, visited, the jobs you’ve had, the relationships and those happy accidents.
The things which were totally unexpected. Maybe it was a conversation. Just think for the moment, how many of those things that now matter enormously, if I could say the word, to you, were actually part of your original plan? Yeah.
I’m gonna bet not a lot. Yeah. So let’s have a little think.
Don’t think that planning is bad, by the way. We’re not going to throw planning out with the bathwater, because that’s a ridiculous thing to do. Because planning is effective when it’s done properly, and it’s successful.
All the things I did, having found these unexpected things and the why nots, I still had to plan for them to come to fruition. Because what does planning do? It gives us a little bit of certainty, because we’ve got an idea where we’re going, what we’re doing. It gives us a bit of control, doesn’t it? Again, because we know the steps.
And that control gives us a little bit of reassurance. Maybe sometimes it fulfills your identity. This is where I’m going.
I don’t like the identity bit, but this is why I think, I’m going to do this. That’s a better identity. I can do this, because I’ve got control.
And plans give you something to measure against, doesn’t it? Because if you haven’t got a plan to measure against, you don’t know how close you are to that goal. You don’t know how far you’ve come. You don’t know whether you have to move direction slightly.
And it also gives you that wonderful feeling that you know what you’re doing. Now, sometimes we don’t, but we feel it. And that’s why abandoning or changing a plan can feel so uncomfortable, you see.
We’re going to change and that takes away our uncertainty, or creates uncertainty rather. Can’t get it right, Cluffy. We’re maybe still in control, but the reassurance isn’t there anymore.
And we’re thinking, is this me? My measurements are gone. Maybe I don’t know what I’m doing. Maybe I get that funny belief.
And that’s why I say, changing plans can be a little bit, feel funny. We’re threatening that certainty that we were believing is that we knew the route. But the thing is, there’s a richer point.
And it’s like overplanning. Don’t overplan. This is to me, it’s a little bit like there’s planning and there’s direction.
And I want to look at this in three ways and just see which ones resonate with you. You see, we have a plan. This is where I’m going.
And this is how I’m going to get there. Okay. Seems reasonable, doesn’t it? But then we have, and this is what I’ve been finding in my North Star work, finding new directions.
The direction, this is the sort of life that I want to move towards. Oh, that’s different, isn’t it? And then thirdly, the openness. I’m prepared to recognise something I couldn’t have put on the map.
It’s being open, being aware, intuitive. You see, my personal change work, I’ve called my North Star because things have changed in my life and I’ve got different opportunities and I want to fill them. I’ve got time for different opportunities.
I need to fill them with things. I thought I had to have a plan. But now what really matters to me and what I found out by sitting down thinking about the different ways and things I could do, what matters to me is that I’ll recognise the right direction when I encounter it.
That’s the thing, being aware, not being tunnel vision, because that tunnel vision, you don’t see anything other than in there. And yes, you have to be focused. But first of all, you have to be open.
And that’s why I get that why not moment. That’s what it is. Why not? You see, when Mike approached me initially, and he thought it, and I did think it myself, that’s not my trajectory.
That’s not on my plan. I was looking for other things. And I said, why don’t you ask me? Why not? You see, here’s the thing, you don’t say yes to everything.
And that’s the thing. We’re not going to go, oh, well, I just say yes, yes, yes. Because the lesson isn’t to say yes to everything.
Because that’s bloody rubbish, isn’t it? When something unexpected appears, don’t automatically reject it, though. Because it simply wasn’t on your plan. Consider it.
Just consider it. You see, I think the consideration should be, and what I’m going to say is, it’s that magical pause, that time where we just say, whoa, stop. Let me think about this for the moment.
Where do you think about it? I’m going to tell you, I use the puzzle book. What’s a puzzle book? I’ve told you so many times, I’ll tell you again. A puzzle book is just a book with plain paper.
It can be lined, it can be dotted, it can be anything you bloody like, but it’s a paper. But it gives you something to write down and to think, to ask questions and answer those questions. You have to answer them too.
Asking those questions, well, why not? What if? And I think when you ask that question, why not? There may be a time that you’re going to reject it, but there’s other times where you look at it and go, yeah, why not? And that’s where the magic happens. See, that’s very different from blindly following opportunities. Because some opportunities are just a cliff waiting to fall off, or a waterfall.
You know, you’re in the river, you go, oh, I’m with the flow. Yeah, over the waterfall. You’re not steering.
But that steering is being open, open to opportunities that come your way. You see, you’ll remember that we’ve already talked about intuition, and your unconscious mind. We’ve explored that.
So go back through some past episodes, but really listening to yourself. We’ve also explained, or dive deeply into, oh, what’s that feeling underneath that feeling? Because sometimes we get a feeling, and then we go, oh, what’s under there? That one I think is called what your unconscious mind is trying to tell you, which is a bit like listening to yourself. We’ve talked about that too.
But you see, all those things seem to make sense to me. They’re all part of finding the right direction. You see, now I’m asking this.
If the future, your future, my future, can’t be completely planned, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, we need to become better at recognising what’s worth exploring when it appears. And that’s where your intuition, your feelings, your values, and those little nudges become so relevant. And you see, let’s go a little bit deeper.
And this is where I use, really use that, that puzzle book. So what I’d like you to do, if you want to, I’d like you to, maybe if it’s okay, to close your eyes. So if there’s, if you don’t need anything, and you’re in a place where you’re going to be safe, you’re not going to do anything, and it’s okay, you can always come back to this, or you can do it with open eyes, but you can do this once to listen to, and then once with a piece of paper, your puzzle book.
Maybe you want to write them down, I don’t know. But the first question I want you to ask, if you just close your eyes for a moment and consider this, just consider it. How the hell did I get here? That’s all.
How the hell did I get here? Then consider this. What happened in my life that I never planned, but I’m so incredibly grateful that it happened? I’ve explained a few of mine. So don’t rush this, just go over your past, those wonderful things that happened that you never planned.
And when you think about it now, you go, oh man, that was so good. Maybe they’re the people you met, the opportunities. And then consider what did those unexpected opportunities, those experiences teach me about what really matters to me? Yeah, the important things, your values.
See with Mike, yeah, it was a great opportunity, but the biggest thing I had was trust and support, and how he just was there for me all the time, like a rock. And finally, just think, if you don’t need, now I’m going to change my mind, I’ve got another question. Where in my life am I trying to control the route or route rather than choose the direction? Think about that, that’s a weird one.
Where in my life am I trying to control the route or route rather than choose the direction? See, that’s what I had. Thinking of my start, my North Star, I had to have a route, a direct, but now I’m into directions. And finally, this is the final one.
If I didn’t and don’t need to know the destination yet, what is the next direction worth exploring? Wow, think about that. And you see, I got all the lovely questions, and we’ll go over those questions again very, very briefly. If you want to, oh, by the way, you can open your eyes.
I nearly forgot. But the questions would be, let me just repeat those questions. So if you wanted to do it with a puzzle book and writing, just think of these questions, write them down.
How the hell did I get here? Write this one down. What happened in my life that I never planned, but I’m incredibly grateful it happened? The third question, what did those unexpected experiences teach me about what really matters to me? The values. The fourth question, what in my life am I trying to control the route, rather than choose the direction? And then that important one, the final question, if I don’t need to know the destination yet, what is the next direction worth exploring? Write those down in a puzzle book and just think about them.
You see, I’m doing this myself now. So this is just not something I’m coming up with. No, this is the working model for my North Star.
This is what I do for myself, because I’m still figuring this bugger out. See, I’ve been searching my North Star, which is just, I realise it’s just a direction. It’s not things.
I thought I was going to have to put things in to all the things I want to do, fill up my time. But now I’m finding direction of things. You see, I’ve questioned my goals.
I’ve questioned my bloody identity in this. I’ve explored everything in my intuition. I’ve even looked at, if you remember, freedom or structure.
And they’re interlinked, aren’t they? And I explored those, what happens when uncomfortable feelings come, because when you ask these type of questions, you do get emotions. And that’s when you look beneath the surface to find out what’s happening. What is the message? Because your unconscious mind is giving you something, giving you a question, giving you an answer, giving you places to explore.
Direction in thinking, as it were. You see, what I’m asking is, what if I don’t even need a bloody map, because I’m open to a direction? I don’t know where I’m going, but I just know I’m aware of opportunities. And you see, when you get back to that is you can actually look at your life and go, well, how the hell did I get here? There was great things that happened, but the important things that happened were probably not even on the map.
See, I did get here by making some plans, obviously. But I also got here because life did things I couldn’t have planned. Yeah, life did things I couldn’t have planned.
People appeared in my life, wonderful people, unplanned. Opportunities came along. And with those, I made choices.
And I changed, I changed direction sometimes. I simply said, hey, why not? And I want you to think of those same things, to be open to the direction you’re giving your life. You see, maybe I don’t really need to know exactly where I’m going next.
Or maybe you don’t have to know exactly where you’re going next. Maybe I need to recognise the direction I’m willing to explore. Or maybe you need to recognise the direction you’re willing to explore.
I hope with every little bit of me, that this has got those little cogs moving in your mind. Because I want you to make a difference to your life. I don’t want you to be stuck in a rut.
I want you to be open. And when those opportunities come, you bloody seize them. Because you might not know exactly where it’s going.
But you’ve now got the direction, you’ve now got the value, the importance of it. And then you plan a little bit, you make choices. I’m not throwing away planning.
But we need to be open and aware. And I think this is so important. I’d love you to share this with anybody and everybody.
Because it’s things to think about. There’s no answers in any of this. This is just a sharing of my experiences of how we can look to make our life so bloody rich, being open.
And then making wise choices. Because it’s ultimately your choice. And I know you’ll choose wisely.
So please share this episode with anybody and everybody. Give me your email address, I want to share something to you. Give me your WhatsApp, put it on a group, anything you can.
Because this is so important to get people to live their own life, follow their own direction, their path. Maybe they’re Northstar, maybe they’re changing directions, and they need some support. And these questions will help.
So if you do that, press subscribe, if you would, follow button, because there’s loads of different stuff coming up now. I’m even going to bring in something called tools in transformation, little snippets of things that actually work. But I’ll explain that on a separate episode.
They’re just going to come out, popping in and out. There’s not going to be a timetable for them. So you need to follow, you need to subscribe.
So they get them, and they’re always there for you, because they’re going to be invaluable. But most importantly, when you think about that, and you sit down with your puzzle book, and you go through it, have fun. Play.
Because when you have that curious, playful mentality, that emotion of curiosity, you can be amazed what you find, and then follow your heart. Wisely, a little bit of planning, but look for the direction first. Have more fun than you can stand, in every way, shape or being.
And maybe you’ll be surprised, because you start feeling happy for no reason. More and more and more and more. So until the next time, my friend, go fly.
Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited