Let Go of Planning the Nitty Gritty

See the big picture, draw a rough timeline, then let everything falls into place

I grew up with music scores as a trained classical musician.

As a pianist, my score is already a bit more complicated than others because with two hands, three pedals, and multiple keys, I can tap on at least 10 notes at once. But that’s nothing compared to a conductor music score, where all musical instruments happen in front of them at once.

Life is a bit like that, to do what we need to do at that moment is complicated enough, but when everything combines, it becomes overwhelming.

Unfortunately, no one teaches us to live life like a conductor, yet, society expects us to do well in almost every department.

It took me around 27 years to find the meaning of my life and then 3 years to build the life I truly wanted. It feels like I have spent a long time studying a very complicated score, and then practice it with my band for a long time.

And now, everything has fallen into place and I am ready to perform.

We are the conductor of our life, not one of the players. How can we balance the big picture and the details? Why do we need to let go rather than hold on to things that aren’t perfect?

Visualization

When we study the score enough, it becomes alive and translated into a vision with real people.

A conductor won’t read every note on the score as he conducts, that’s not the point. The notes are for the players of each instrument to learn and practice to perfection. A conductor just needs to make sure it’s performed perfectly and in harmony with others as and when it’s needed.

Life is the same. We have to visualize how we want our life to be, as detail as we possibly can, but we can’t get overboard with the details. We need to know when to pause and let things pan out. If we dig too far down, it becomes imagination and life seldom follows our imagination.

For example, actor Jim Carrey famously wrote himself a $10m cheque before he went on to make all the blockbusters. He didn’t know what movies he would make and who he would perform with. He just saw the big picture of making it in the filming industry. In fact, his net worth is now estimated to be $180m, so in comparison, $10m is a small number to what he had achieved.

Whether you believe in the law of attraction or not. We should always have a picture of what we wish our lives to look like and visualization is a great technique to make us conscious of our true desires.

Here are the things we should leave out when we visualize:

• When — Let time be a motivator, not a pressure. Have short-term and long-term plans, but don’t set a hard timeline.
• Where — Know what kind of place you want to be but not exactly where. This allows us to have openness. I knew I wanted to live by the sea, but it could be Brighton, Tainan, or Sydney, in this case, we can keep our eyes open for opportunities.
• Who — Many people come across the law of attraction when they are in a toxic or unrequited relationship and try to get this person. Visualize the qualities and what you feel when you are with your ideal person, not who this person is, otherwise you are limiting yourself more than aligning with the universe.
• How — It is important to know how to get to somewhere, that’s being resourceful and informed, but not exactly how everything needs to be done. This way you can be flexible and again, your eyes open wide for unexpected opportunities.

Timing

As you know there’s usually only one pianist in an orchestra so I was not always chosen to be the pianist. To keep me involved, I sometimes play the triangle.

This means that I’d spend most of my time waiting for my moment to shine than actually playing. The score often includes instructions like “count 82 bars”…

Whilst that’s extreme, most orchestral work is played department by department so every instrument has a chance to shine, and slowly builds up to a climax where everyone is playing in vigour.

The ensemble is grand, exciting, and powerful, but without the departmental or even the soloist’s performance, there won’t be variety and drama. They are complementary to each other.

Translating to our life, we must appreciate that when we are focusing on developing one thing, the other department might have to wait. Sometimes our work is prioritized, sometimes our family is more important.

So let go of the need to be perfect in every department all the time. That’s a climax, and climax is short-lifted. In the orchestra of life, everything takes place in sequence, sometimes we have a dialogue between our love life and our mental health department, and sometimes our finances and our aspirations.

With our life span expands to 100 years, it’s harder and harder to follow the old model of study, work, marriage, family, retirement. Things will keep interacting with each other. We might get married first before going to university, or we might start a company whilst having the first child.

As and when these happen, we might neglect other parts of our lives, but guess what, it’s ok! There will be a time when we become alert that we have overworked and under-exercised, or we spend too much time on our mental health and not enough on caring for our friends. Then rebalance it, like the conductor to direct the flow of music.

A great life conductor is to be aware at all times of the balance and the quality of each department in our lives. This is based on a big picture and a rough timeline, so we know what our mission is.

Failing to have a big picture then it’s very easy to fall into the trap of digging more and more on one thing and neglecting the others. Just like the rat racers who can’t seem to get enough money and promotion.

Having too detailed of a picture will give us tunnel vision. We won’t be open to opportunities and changes. Just like our prior generations, who think that changing careers and divorcing at a certain age are unacceptable.

As a life-changer, the balance of how much to visualize and when to let go is an art that’s worth mastering. This way our lives become less hard, we allow things to fall into places for us.

It’s down to trust. If you have faith that your vision is well-considered, balanced, and pragmatic, then when you focus on one thing, the other things will come along nicely. Then the next question, of course, is how to make sure the vision is balanced.

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