Exploring what’s around life’s corner

What’s your relationship to “not knowing”? Not knowing how things are going to work out; not knowing if you should leave this job, and if you’ll land another one; not knowing if this great idea you have to start a new endeavor/ program/ podcast will be successful?

We are faced with a lot of uncertainty in our lives, lots of choice points with no guarantees. It’s kind of like starting a long drive towards an undefined endpoint, passing forks in the road and having to decide which fork to take. How do you decide?

I’ve faced these choice points myself, and it also comes up a lot in for my coaching clients. One of my clients realized that she keeps getting stuck because she tries to know the outcome before taking a step, and that realization in itself freed her from “the need to know.”

I’ve developed some guideposts to help my clients and myself:

What will it feel like if you don’t take that side road or opportunity?
What is the story you tell yourself about not achieving your dreams, or accumulating more data points of “the road not travelled”?
What’s the end goal: to achieve success – or to do something to boost your morale and/or to congratulate yourself for stepping into the unknown, regardless of the outcome?
What grace will you give yourself if it’s not the success you were hoping for?

Here’s how I reframe this:

I try to move the goalpost and to redefine “success”. Success = trying something that seemed daunting, because I got over myself and took a leap. It doesn’t matter if it’s not wildly successful; it’s an experiment – and the outcome provides me with data that can help me refine my endeavor. If I don’t try, I won’t get that data.

I have found that this reframing that has worked for me has been very helpful to my clients. If you find this reframing useful and would like to experiment with a new approach, contact me. I’d be delighted to help you face what’s around life’s corner.