Choose Plan C.
Here’s where this is going:
Plan A is can make us feel like a-holes.
Plan B is better.
Plan C is catalytic.
I know plan C doesn’t sound like the most thrilling plan, but hear me out:
Your friend (that’s me) is learning to knit - like, somehow I ended up with a yarn-mountain learning to knit. Anywho, lately my goal is to knit beautiful scarfs that I can gift for people to treasure and compliment… and ultimately decide my business is ready to go from Claire Becker Coaching to Claire Becker Coaching & Crafts because that is my level now.
Good for me, right?! Wow!
Plan A can take a turn:
Except for if one of those knit pieces gets lost in a snowbank (this is a real life Wisconsin risk, not an exaggeration, for readers outside of my state). All of a sudden my goal comes crashing down! The desired result was the compliments and eventual business change! There are no compliments when the treasure is lost! It’s over.
Ok, maybe we’re spinning out of control for something small and hypothetical here, so let me center on the point:
It’s not fair to ourselves to set goals that are grounded in other people’s actions.
Even if someone loses a scarf I knit them, it doesn’t mean what I did wasn’t beautiful. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t have strong intentions or that some day I could be Claire Becker Coaching & Crafts.
Plan B goals are just about our best intent and stick with what’s in our control.
This sounds more like, “I will choose patterns and yarns really thinking of the people I’m making them for, and spend quality time doing my best work to share. I’ll also remember how much joy I receive in sharing these crafts.”
Phew! Already a release, right? But this started with “Choose Plan C” so you already know a twist is coming. What if halfway through my project I run out of yarn, there’s no more of the same kind I was using and now the second half has to be a totally different color. Ah! The sky is falling!
That’s because even when we set our goals JUST on what we control, we can make mistakes, misjudgments, we can get tripped up and have to switch yarn. Plan B goals can still allow us to get stuck in that “I failed, it’s over” space.
Plan C goals focus on what we can learn.
So when the first scarf is in a snowbank and the second scarf is in color chaos we can pivot and still achieve something. This goal is: I’ll seek to learn about myself and the ones I love through every knit I make.
What did I learn? It takes courage and honesty to tell someone you love that the scarf is lost in a snowbank or that it’s simply a little strange looking. My friends have that courage and honesty with me - it’s a treasure in itself.
Plan C is Catalytic (and probably supports you in getting to Plan A without worrying about being an a-hole).
Here’s the trick: When we choose Plan C and simply focus on learning, we release the pressure on ourselves to perform a certain way according to our own or someone else’s standard. We leave more room for joy and less room for judgement. We create the space for ourselves to succeed through learning, honing our craft, enjoying our gifts.
So I invite you to join me in Plan C.
I’m going to take the pressure off my knitting and my goal is to enjoy the process and learn something new through every knit I make: either by learning about the person I want to gift it to, so that it’s just right for them or by trying a new stitch.
And who knows, maybe it’ll be Claire Becker Coaching & Crafts in no time.