Emily was in her mid-20’s, young, beautiful, smart, driven, and going through a divorce. It was surprising to see this incredible young woman in a “failed marriage.” When I expressed this to her, she shared her incredible insight with me. My challenge to you is to consider how it applies to your life.

Emily pointed out that as we grow up, we plan everything we’ll have, do, and be in adulthood.  These plans start as playtime activities for little girls and boys, developing into more definite ideas as we mature through the tween, teen, and young adult stages.  For Emily, these plans included a subconscious blueprint of “the one” she would marry – her happily-ever-after Prince Charming.  By the time she graduated high school Emily’s mental blueprint was solidified. She dated her high school sweetheart through college and they married a week after graduation. It took less than three years to fall apart.

As Emily and her husband grew up together, they never re-evaluated their relationship needs as adults. They never pulled out their blueprints to see if any modifications needed to be made because of changing times. An adult Emily agreed to marry a blueprint written by a child, and her husband did the same thing. They could have altered their blueprints together and made it work, but they found it too late for that. It was the fairy-tale Prince Charming and the Princess – they don’t really ever say much to each other. Someone sings someone else blushes, they kiss and then the bells ring as birds fly next to a horse-drawn carriage with a “just married’ banner hanging from their perfectly manicured birdie-talons. The newlyweds are darned good-looking, the dude usually has a great horse, and woodland creatures seem to like them a lot which is super cool – but there’s no substance.

What outdated subconscious blueprints are mobilized in your life?  In Emily’s case, it was relationship oriented. Other people experience this by hitting a course of study in higher education only to graduate and realize they hate what they studied so long to do professionally (I know at least 5 of these!).

Over the holidays, I discussed this with one of my stepkids who is in that really messy place between childhood and adulthood when you’re still not self-sufficient financially but want to live and be treated as if you are. I told him about Emily – but asked him to apply the “Outdated Blueprint” theory to his relationship with his family. No longer a boy, and not quite an independent man, he’s at the pivotal point of redesigning his blueprint. Wanting to be spoken with and treated as a man by his father (and everyone else), it’s on him to shift the paradigm. He must take the blueprint and modify it; No one else can do it for him, and no one else will change the structure of their relationship blueprint without being forced to do so by his change.

It’s interesting to consider. I’d love to help you dust off your blueprints! Click here to explore what coaching can do to transform your world!