Minx Boren: A different take on five-year plans

A few weeks ago I sat down with uber-coach Minx Boren for a free-range chat encompassing healing, growth, prayer, goals, embracing the Mystery, and more. 

More Minx tidbits will follow in the weeks ahead, but this is a juicy jump-off point.

When she coaches, Minx loves to tunnel into her client’s desires. However, she cautions:

Goals are fine. Action steps are fine. A big five-year plan is absurd. [I almost ruined the recording here, I burst out laughing so hard.] Because by the time you do two things the universe has already run to meet you and you’re on another plan. 

Most of what happens happens in the realm of what we don’t know we don’t know. 

We’re not in a place of being able to access all the possibilities. There’s always something more. 

If we can move in a direction and be open to what’s moving toward us from that direction it will work out. 

Isn’t this exactly how life has presented itself to you thus far? You move toward a dream, events line up, often idiosyncratically, and instead of becoming an advertising hooha when you hit New York you can only land a job as a proofreader for some news organization . . . . Before you know it the life of adventure you always hoped for is taking place in Bahrain and the jungles of Cambodia and the city-state of Singapore as you’ve moved up the chain and are now globe-trotting around tracking down stories. 

Or you quickly tire of the life you thought you once wanted and take those now-honed skills and put them in service of your community. Or synagogue. Or favorite charity. Or a small business. Or
— gasp
— a blog.

Re-read her second paragraph above. Beyond the Zen koan circularity of it, doesn’t that resonate for you? Most of what happens in your life occurs in the infinitely vast realm about which we know nothing!

We only know a little, a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the whole. 

Minx is saying: form your vision and move in its direction, yet allow for the mystery of experience to present itself. Then reformulate that vision as newness unfolds itself before your eyes. 

Takes some of the pressure off, doesn’t it —