A clarity diet
In July, I put one of my clients on a Clarity Diet.
He had some big, important decisions to make (the future of his career, location, and some risks he was considering taking) — and he kept getting lost in the swirl of “I don’t know.”
We’d talked about it from a bunch of angles, I’d offered him a bunch of tools, and still… the swirl.
I felt like the answer was in him — but he just needed to access it more continuously.
So I put him on a Clarity Diet.
The core ingredient of his Clarity Diet was solitude.
My favorite definition of solitude is a “state of mind, in which the mind, isolated from input from other minds, works through a problem on its own.”
(That’s from Raymond Kethledge and Michael Erwin; more on that here.)
For the month of July, I invited him to cultivate more solitude, whenever possible. The goal was a chunk of solitude every day, but we both knew that probably wouldn’t happen. He had a corporate job, a partner, hobbies — a full life.
So instead, he focused on finding more pockets of time: a half-hour here, an hour there, an occasional longer chunk of time.
This client didn’t like journaling that much, so we didn’t expect him to do much of it. He might jot down some ideas during his solitude sometimes, to remember them. But journaling wasn’t at the core of his Clarity Diet — solitude was.
…
My favorite part of this story isn’t that it worked.
Though it did: By the end of July, he did get some significant, much-desired clarity about his next steps.
My favorite part of this story is that it worked, despite the fact that he had a bunch of life happening at the time. He was going through his busiest period at work in years. A beloved family member died.
And still, he found pockets of solitude.
A walk in solitude. A chance to sit on a park bench in solitude. One extended train ride, a few hours with a notebook and solitude. (That train ride was very productive for him).
…
I have been thinking about this concept of a Clarity Diet ever since. So many of us are craving clarity, and this was such a useful way, a practical way, to find some.
Would you go on a Clarity Diet?
…
As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.
Katie
p.s. Would you like to hire me to be your life coach? Curious about what life coaching is and how it might be helpful to you? Learn more here.
Sign up for my newsletter to get helpful + encouraging essays like this every Sunday morning. It’s free!
