TRANSCRIPT: Notes From Dunfanaghy 14 – Birth Planning
Hi, it’s Megan. Welcome to today’s Notes from Dunfanaghy.
Today’s thought kind of follows on from yesterday’s thought. So yesterday I was talking about the idea that work is birth. Like, the whole creative process, how we bring our work into the real world, is a kind of birth. This is how humans create things. And so today I’m thinking about birth planning. So go with me on this.
Whenever I was, you know, firmly ensconced in the business world, it was all about five-year plans, six-month plans, 12-month plans, 10-year plans. Like, every conference that I went to, every course that I took, everyone that I engaged with wanted to know what my business plan was, or what my vision and plan of action was, for whatever timescale.
And I found all of that not very helpful. I went through this process of, like, I would come up with some kind of plan for the next time period, whether that was six months or a year, five years, but I was just plucking things out of thin air, you know — well, this is the number of clients I would like to have, or this is the amount of money I would like to be making, or here’s how many of this particular product or service I would like to sell. And then the end of that time period would roll around, and I would look at the plan, and I would have not achieved any of it, because I didn’t actually really want any of it, I didn’t care about any of it. It was just kind of like, oh, this is what you’re supposed to want, this is what you’re supposed to do. But the plan was completely disconnected from who I am and what my work was about and what I actually cared about.
So I got to the point where I realized this is just making me feel like crap, so I should stop doing this, it’s getting in the way. Because it’s not that during that time nothing was happening — things were happening, just not the kind of things that were put in the plan. And there was progress happening that couldn’t necessarily be measured in terms of revenue, or number of clients, or any of that kind of stuff.
So I had the foresight to realise this isn’t helpful, I should stop doing it. And there was a time then when I didn’t really know what to do instead, because I still felt the need — the reason I engaged with those 12-month plans and five-year plans in the first place was because I felt a need for some kind of containment, I wanted some kind of holding, some kind of boundaries to work within.
And so when I stopped doing those kinds of plans, I still felt that need. It’s like, I just have wide-open space in front of me, this is the work that I want to do for the rest of my life in some way, shape or form, and I just have wide-open space and years and decades ahead of me, and I would like some kind of containment to give me a bit more psychological safety to get the work done, and some kind of constraints as well. I think constraints are always helpful to the creative process.
And so birth was key for me in figuring out how to approach this, and how to think about planning when I was taking this more organic, more artistic approach to my work. So here’s the experience I had of birth planning.
First time around, I made a birth plan because I was told to make a birth plan. And the plan was kind of pure fantasy — I think this is quite common — it wasn’t ridiculously detailed, but it was quite detailed, and the things that were in it were things like, this is how I want to give birth, this is exactly where I want to give birth, these are the interventions that I don’t want to happen. And none of it went according to plan, obviously.
And so second time around, I remember being in an antenatal class with my husband and a few other couples and a midwife, and she asked about birth plans. And we ended up having a discussion where I said, I don’t really see the point in having a birth plan, because last time none of it came to fruition. And if anything, that made me feel — it definitely wasn’t supportive, maybe a little bit like those business plans, of like, oh great, I made this plan and then I didn’t do any of it, that doesn’t make me feel great.
And so she pointed out that a good birth plan, a helpful, supportive birth plan, focuses on the things that you actually are in control of.
And so as I thought about that, and as we talked about that, it’s like, oh, okay, so that means that I might have an intention of where I would like to give birth, of how I would like to give birth, but I’m not really in control of those things. The things I am in control of are things like, how do I want to be communicated with through the process, who do I want supporting me through the process, how do I want to be supported.
So the whole thing becomes much more focused on the process, and how I would like to be supported through the process, rather than the outcome. My first birth plan was entirely focused on the outcome. And so that second birth went a lot better, I felt a lot more supported, the plan was actually something that genuinely was very supportive for me.
And so at some point along the line, I made this connection of, oh, this is also how I need to think about planning in my work. A business plan is very much focused on all of these things that we just don’t have any control over. We would like to think that we can control how much money we make, how many customers we have, how big our email list is, like, whatever the thing is. But actually, it’s all trial and error, especially if you’re taking an artistic approach to it. Like, we just don’t control those things. And most people’s experience of business plans is that you realise after the fact that they’re just this kind of act of pure fantasy and magical thinking.
But a birth plan is very realistic, it’s very grounded in what are the things that I can actually control, which is much more about how can I show up to the process, how can I be supported through the process. And we can have aspirations, we can have desires, we can kind of hold the direction that we want to move in with our work, we can hold that in our mind, but we’re very clear that we’re not actually really in control of that.
Our entire body of work is this creative collaboration between ourselves, our customers, the world around us. Like, if we’re making our real work, if we are making work that is rich, we can’t be in control of it. It’s this living, breathing thing, it’s this total collaboration with life, with our community. And so, of course, we can’t control it, and of course it’s a kind of madness to create a plan that assumes we have all of this control that we just don’t have.
So there is surrender inherent in a good birth plan, and I think that that needs to be at the heart of how we think about planning when it comes to our work.
And so this is another thing that I’m always holding in my mind at the Dunfanaghy retreat. On the last day of the retreat, we do talk about next steps, and we talk about how do we ground these insights that we’ve had, how are you going to go back to your life or go out into the world. But none of it is with an expectation of what’s your six-month plan, what’s your 12-month plan.
It’s very much like I want people to walk away with a birth plan of sorts. I want people to walk away knowing, like, the next small thing that they’re going to do that they have some control over. And I also encourage people to own the surrender of the whole thing, and to understand that we can go and do our work, and we have to go and fully engage with the things that we can do and the things that we are in control of, and at the same time know that we have to completely surrender to the process of making the work, and to the time and the pace that the work wants to emerge at.
So that’s my thought for today. If you are interested in joining me in the Dunfanaghy retreat at the end of September, and you have questions, logistical or otherwise, you’re very welcome to send me an email, or we can hop on a Zoom chat. I would love to talk to you. Thanks. See you later.