Increase Your Chance of Success in 2022

How fertile is the soil you’re planting in?

“To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves.” Mahatma Gandhi

The view outside is one of stillness and white, yet this article is about the planting (planning) season we’re in as we decide what to grow this year. It explores ways to improve the fertility of the soil and increase the opportunity for “success” in 2022, including ensuring you, as gardener thrive.

Nature and seasons are an excellent “lens” through which to consider how we live and work. To our demise, our capitalist society perpetuates a belief that we need to be in an “endless summer and harvesting”. Working and living this way, in contrast to the more natural ways of nature, is unsustainable, self-damaging and exhausting.

If you are here reading today (hi!), it’s likely you’re a do-er, accomplished, get sh*t done, list making type. Yes, you are my people! First and foremost, I honor your way of doing, and want to give you more sustainable ways of doing so you can make your contribution and be more nourished by it.

Let’s explore a new way!

A New Way

As a coach, I stay curious about the work and “doing” of my clients, to learn how rooted (to their values, what’s important etc.) it is inside them. Doing types have a way of moving quickly through the world, and can sometimes “do” on autopilot. This way doesn’t always allow for things to settle and root and can be exhausting. With roots and connection to who we are on the inside, we find greater meaning and joy in the work and as we work. The type of doing is more sustainable in the long run and is far more nourishing.

How do I discover what’s going on inside my clients?

I ask questions. It’s simple as that. While they are plenty of clues offered in body language and words, our interior self is private and unseen.

Our interior is an amazing part of ourselves and often unknown. In a world that heralds doing, our interior experience of is less attended to. We all have access to our interior self, but we vary in our skillful access and connection to it. So, by turning our attention inwards, we are essentially nurturing our soil and supporting it’s fertility.

On behalf of a year of fruitful plans, here are a handful of ways to questions so you can “check” and explore your inner soil.

What guides your planting?

Every year I plant big summer pots that sit outside our front door. When I go to the nursery I’m mesmerized by the colors and could easily take one of everything. It might work that the combo looks nice or it might not. So I usually try to find a color palette or decide how I want to feel when I look at the pots. This offers me an overarching theme to work with and it guides the creativity and work. A theme also ensures that plants and plans play well together and are synergistic!

Do you have a word of the year? Or is there a feeling you want more of? While I know you’re a rock star at creating strategies and goals, I feel curious if you can bring a different dimension into your planning that allows for creativity as you go through 2022.

Values make for the best kind of harvest.

Do you have a set of values that matter to you? Values can endure all kinds of seasons and weather. Whether you achieve all your targets or plans or not, I can tell you that looking back over a year and being able to say you’ve lived your values is a form of success no one can touch. There is no right way to align your plans to your values, what matters is allowing for their practical expression.

What values matter to you? Health? Financial wellness? Making an impact? How will your values find expression in the work you do? Is there a part of your work or life where values aren’t considered? Why is that? Are their new value wanting to arise?

Do you know why you’re planting?

Asking yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing, and continuing to dig a little deeper to discover why you’re planting the seeds you want to plant is like grabbing the hoe, and pulling back the soil to allow new seeds to nestle into and be protected by the soil. You want to give those seeds the best chance of growing!

Why do your plans matter to you? Why do you want to put your precious effort to these plans? Why do they matter to the people being served by them? And why, when the work gets tough, will you want to stay in and do it? And then ask yourself why all over again. Let your “why” teach you about what really matters to you, on perhaps an even deeper level than before.

Are you leaving room for the shit?

Call it what you want, manure, compost etc. poop is a thing in planting. We all have our own brand of poop we hold at arm’s length, my personal go-to is shame. I have an uncanny ability to make failure personal, and then to put it under wraps. The thing with planting is that our personal poop can help create incredibly fertile soil — if we allow it. We can also spend considerable energy hiding or concealing our personal shit, so perhaps this year, the energy can instead go towards embracing the fertility of your personal manure.

What are you trying to leave out? Or not include? What key life lessons or experiences can you invite in? Is it shame you wrestle with? Perfectionism? Doubt? Low confidence? It’s time to welcome all the parts of you and let the sunshine bring light to the darkness.

Are the gardener & the garden seasonally matched?

Often we try to plant like it’s spring, but we’re in a personal winter. Oh Beauty, this isn’t going to work. It’s akin to walking outside and dropping seeds on the snow. All the prayer and tending and watering and sunshine on those seeds will not cause it to bear fruit or flowers. And you risk resenting the garden or yourself…

Can you be more honest with yourself and your own capacity right now? Just like spring always follows winter, you can trust your personal winter will only be a season. Consider how you can adjust your plans and/or resource yourself. A big dose of compassion and realism will go a long way here. And plans for the year can always be revisited or re-imagined down the road.

And breathe.

Seeds aren’t a fan of tough rocky soil. The soil needs to be light(er) and full of oxygen so there’s room for things to take hold. Breathe deep and allow the soil and seeds to plant and settle. Trust that with your kind yet firm hand your plans will bear fruit, but also remember to breathe and to trust that it’s not all up to you. Sunshine, wind, insects, little animals scampering through our garden, insects, all of these are needed — along with a good night’s rest to help your garden grow. Is just isn’t all up to you!

May your-kind-of-successful find you and fill you today and in all the days to come.

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