How attached to outcomes are you?

Recently I have been very attached to some outcomes and its been limiting me. I have been running a series of courses, which I had designed and planned and then executed. I had a clear idea of how I thought they should be set up, how many participants I wanted and how the 3 modules would run.

As it turned out events conspired to challenge me on this somewhat. Because they are quite in depth courses I wanted no more than 8 participants and I wanted various groups to stay with each other through out the programme and not move groups. In the event I got 12 on one event and 5 on another and often different people juggled around onto the modules they could get on and didn’t stay consistently with their starting group.

I was convinced it would be a disaster and adversely affect the quality of the course.

And do you know what?

It did change the course but not for better or for worse. It was just simply different. 

The bigger group numbers created a breadth of exploration and understanding and the smaller group sizes meant we went deeper into areas of interest. The people swapping groups simply added the dimension of a new perspective and all involved enjoyed the different mix of people.

These were just 2 changes of many to my ‘plan’ and as Field marshal Von Moltke said “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy”.

So I began to look at my attachment to certain outcomes, I’d find myself saying “It should be like this…” or “This is how it needs to be…” and things invariably don't turn out how I ‘wanted them’. But that has been OK - in fact its been more than OK, its been great because the new outcome has been … well, different.

Now, I set out my thoughts about something and then say to myself “And maybe things will change and that’s OK”. I go into things with far less need to know how they will turn out.

My attachment to the outcome was causing me stress and worry and when I let go of that need for certainty all sorts of creative alternatives arose, often which I never expected. Now I’m not saying don’t plan and have objectives but hold them lightly and be prepared to change them. In fact, set them up with the intention of changing them and notice the outcomes are not better or worse, just different.

So, what out comes are you attached to?

What could you let go of?

How would it be to set things in motion without knowing where they will end up?

Piers Carter