Why We Want to Know Exactly How to Get There
You sit down to make a plan for something you want. At the top of the page, the goal is clear. Underneath it, you begin writing what you’ll need to do.
Then the questions multiply. What comes first? How much time should you give it before expecting a result? You leave the page unfinished because answering one question has raised several more.
In this week’s newsletter, I shared how I wish I knew the exact steps toward the life I picture through my apothecary and graduate school. Here, I want to explore what we’re asking those instructions to give us, and how to make a useful plan while some answers are still unavailable.
You Want Your Effort to Matter
It’s hard to give yourself to something without knowing what will come from it. You have other responsibilities, and the hours you spend on this desire are hours you could have spent elsewhere.
Imagine working on a book after your children are asleep. You’re tired, the house still needs attention, and you have a chapter you want to finish. Knowing that the book would eventually find its readers would make that evening feel different.
You’d still have to write. But you’d have an answer to the question that follows you to the desk: will this effort amount to something?
A complete plan seems to offer reassurance. Following it would mean you were doing the right work, in the right order, toward a result you could count on.
That helps explain why a list of tasks can leave us dissatisfied. We wanted to feel more sure about the future, and now we have work to do with the same uncertainty beside us.
Which Question Can You Answer Now?
Suppose you want to offer a workshop. You’re picturing a group engaged in something you love teaching, and you want to know how to make that happen.
You can find out what a venue costs and whether it’s available. Writing an outline will help you decide how much material fits into the session. Those questions have answers you can use before offering anything.
Whether anyone will book requires a different kind of information. You can talk to potential participants about their interests, but their response to an invitation becomes available when you make the invitation.
Separating those questions gives you somewhere to begin. “Where could I hold this?” points toward a conversation with a venue. “Will this become successful work for me?” asks for knowledge that one conversation won’t provide.
That distinction matters when everything starts to feel equally uncertain. Some parts of the plan are ready to be worked out. You can resolve them while acknowledging what you still don’t know.
Picture Yourself Doing the Work
When you picture a finished book, you may imagine holding it or hearing from a reader. Spend some time picturing the afternoon you’ll spend revising it, too.
There’s a paragraph you like that doesn’t fit the chapter. You read it again, consider moving it, and discover that the next section needs rewriting. The book you want to hold includes afternoons spent doing this.
Psychologists Lien Pham and Shelley Taylor studied a related question with students preparing for an exam. Students who mentally rehearsed studying put more time into preparation and achieved better grades than those who focused on imagining the desired result. Better planning and reduced anxiety helped explain the findings.
The study concerned a specific academic task. It offers a useful question for a larger goal: have you pictured what working on it requires from you?
That includes practical details. If writing needs an uninterrupted hour, your plan has to account for where that hour comes from. If you keep getting stuck on a skill, you need a way to learn it. Imagining yourself at work helps you identify what would make the work possible.
Give an Attempt a Clear Purpose
When you finally offer something, it’s tempting to ask that first response to tell you whether the whole idea will work.
With the workshop, a small turnout could feel discouraging. You pictured more participants and hoped the bookings would reassure you that there was interest.
Before deciding what that turnout means, consider what else you need to understand. Did the participants find the exercises useful? Were the instructions clear? Attendance matters, and the experience of those who came gives you another part of the picture.
You can decide before the session that you want feedback on the exercises. That gives the attempt a specific purpose and gives you information to use when preparing another session.
A small experiment needs a question it can reasonably answer. Asking one workshop to settle the future of your work puts enormous pressure on that day.
Blackberry and Making Time for the Desire
Even when you know what to do, giving it time requires a decision of its own.
You intend to work on the project after everything else is finished. Then an appointment runs late or a household task takes longer than expected. By evening, the work is still waiting.
In the flower essence tradition, Blackberry is associated with translating ideas and intentions into action. Its teaching belongs here, where something matters to us but keeps being postponed.
I call this essence Manifest with Blackberry in the apothecary. I’d work with its teaching by looking at what I’ve arranged to make the work possible. Have I set aside time, and what have I already promised to do during those same hours?
That question asks us to be honest about our commitments. Giving a desire an hour may involve moving another task or asking for help.
The intention becomes a choice about how we use the time we have.
Recognizing What You’ve Done Today
There’s relief in deciding what an afternoon is for. You can sit down to revise the chapter or prepare the workshop with some questions still unanswered. When you finish the task you chose, you also have somewhere to stop for the day.
A long-term goal leaves you with work to do tomorrow, even after you’ve given it your attention today. That can make it difficult to feel satisfied. You finish a chapter or prepare the workshop, then immediately think about everything still ahead.
Deciding what you’re working on today also gives you a way to recognize when you’ve done it. The chapter needs another revision, but you’ve worked through the section you chose. The workshop hasn’t happened yet, but the outline is ready.
There’s something worth enjoying in that. You’ve spent part of your day doing work you wanted to bring into your life. Some questions remain, and you’ll have more decisions to make. Tonight, you have something finished enough to put down.
What would help you recognize the effort you’ve given today before asking yourself for more?
If you’d like a flower companion as you put your ideas into practice, explore Manifest with Blackberry in the apothecary.
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