The Big Secret: You Do Your Bit. Let the Universe Do Its Bit.
The forced path vs. the intuitive path
Hi, I’m Saachi!
If life feels like a chore, you’re in the right place.
It turns out the forcing is the very thing blocking the magic. The way out isn’t more hustle, it’s doing what lights you up and letting the outcomes organize around that.
Every week, I write about the science, stories, and experiments you can run to prove it to yourself. ✨
Most of us struggle to achieve our goals.
And when the struggle gets hard, we quit the goal.
But what if I told you that there’s a path to your goals that, if you follow it without thinking, you will inevitably reach?
And more importantly, you’ll reach it with joy and ease instead of force, hustle, and stress?
The Big Secret
Here’s the big secret:
If you just keep showing up for what you want...
And follow your intuition...
Your goals become inevitable.
But here’s the real secret behind that secret.
You have to show up with an open mind.
Open mind = no thinking.
Why?
A non-thinking state is what lets your intuition speak to you and guide you, moment to moment.
Your intuition is the only part of you that’s connected to the intelligence of the whole universe.
And once you do that, you let the universe coordinate all the moving parts to make it happen for you.
A Story: Following the Pulls I Almost Ignored
It was October 2015. I was leaving the US for good.
My family and I had worked really hard to get me there so I could build a great career, get a great income, and live the American dream.
My parents had moved from India to Thailand for a better life, and they wanted the same, and more, for their kids.
So naturally, when I announced I wanted to move back to India to marry the love of my life (we’d met in college, he’d moved back earlier), it came as a shock.
I was terrified too. More than anyone, honestly.
I had the ambition. I was doing well in the US. I knew I could build a great income there if I stayed.
But when I looked at my options in India at the time, they were a tiny fraction of what I was making in the US.
I just knew I wanted both. To marry him and move. And to feed my ambition, land my dream job, and build a real income.
I didn’t know how. I just knew I wanted it all.
So I moved anyway, and decided to figure it out as I went.
I kept showing up. Applying for jobs. Staying open to whatever came next.
If you read my earlier post, you already know how it happened. I landed my dream job at Bain & Co within a matter of months, in the most unexpected way possible, by following a small flicker of curiosity into a vague, spammy looking website.
Despite trying to force my way in through the traditional route years earlier in the US, this time it came more effortlessly. And with a great salary, by Indian standards.
That’s the universe at work.
It’s rarely logical.
In fact, it usually isn’t. But if you follow it anyway, the dots connect in hindsight, exactly like Steve Jobs used to say.
Two years later, my salary tripled again, through a serendipitous LinkedIn message.
The same message landed in many of my colleagues’ inbox at Bain. Most ignored it.
It was for a startup that didn’t seem glamorous or sexy at the time. But I felt a pull and went for it anyway, and I was excited as hell.
That startup became a $4B unicorn. I was one of the first people on its growth team, and that one decision has shaped my career ever since.
What This Story Actually Proves
I’m just fascinated and obsessed by the life mechanics behind this.
The point of this story is to convince you, and honestly, myself too, because I forget this constantly, that we’re not out here alone, trying to conquer the world and force our goals into existence.
We’re a cell in the universe’s organism.
And a cell has to stay in communication with the rest of the organism to know what’s happening, and how things are lining up toward the goal we’re after.
That intelligence gets communicated to us through our intuition.
Our connection to the whole.
It shows up as curiosity. As the small pulls that call out to us, the ones we usually ignore and shut down immediately.
If you look back through your own life, you’ll find the same pattern.
The secret is simple.
Whatever goal you want becomes inevitable if you keep showing up and let your intuition guide you.
The universe, the extended version of you, is already working toward it. Coordinating every moving part behind the scenes.
So trust that. Trust the inner connection. And keep showing up, even when things don’t logically look aligned. They are.
The Mistake We Keep Making
When we walk toward our goals, we rely on our thinking mind instead of our intuition. It feels rational, analytical, familiar. Safe.
The Thinking Mind
The thinking mind is limited. It can’t understand the full range of possibilities around you, or how they could actually serve your goal.
When you’re thinking, you can’t hear your intuition. So you stay blocked.
When an obstacle shows up, the thinking mind spirals.
It fixates on the one path that looks closed, and blocks you from even seeing the other paths that are still wide open.
Intuition
Intuition is the opposite.
It doesn’t always seem logical, and that’s exactly why we dismiss it.
Intuition is connected to something far bigger, an infinite intelligence, the universe, whatever you want to call it.
It can see what the thinking mind simply can’t.
It calls out to you in small, easy to miss ways.
The message that shows up in your inbox out of the blue.
The phone call from a friend you weren’t expecting.
The book that gets recommended to you, out of nowhere.
The billboard you notice on your way to work that sparks an idea, and you get tingles.
It’s like following a trail of clues you get on a game board…except the clues are revealed in real time. in the ‘now.’
What Intuition Actually Does
It guides you on how to participate intelligently, as one cell working with the rest of the cells in the universe’s organism.
Showing you unexpected paths.
Getting you to your goal in a far more effortless way.
Of course it’s effortless because you’re not thinking. There’s no friction. You’re flowing. More on this in a future post. :)
The Question to Ask Instead
So next time an obstacle shows up, don’t give up on the goal.
That’s the mistake.
Convincing yourself there’s no way through is simply not true. That’s the mind taking charge.
Instead, ask the one question that actually matters.
What path is the universe trying to communicate to me right now?
Tune into what your intuition is trying to tell you. It’ll take you on the most efficient, exuberant path.
That’s the secret.
And like you, I forget it almost daily.
Which is exactly why we have to remind ourselves, over and over, every single day.
The one thing
If there’s one thing to take from this, it’s this.
Your goals are inevitable once you get your thinking out of the way and let your intuition lead.
And if you know your goals are inevitable, you can catch your breath and actually enjoy the moment you're in…
…knowing you’re well on your way to your highest potential.
Thank you for reading.
I wish you a wonderful, miraculous day.
If this resonated, I’d appreciate if you could send it to a friend who needs to hear it.
See you next time.