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One thing that often holds my clients back from making decisions
Remember how we talked about confusion last week? I wanted to add a quick additional note (something I tell clients all the time):
Sometimes the reason we are mired in the Land of Confusion is because we are not yet ready to take action.
If we took action…
We might have to find a new job.
Have a really dicey conversation with our mom. Or our boss.
Get divorced.
Move.
Do something that our friend wouldn’t like.
Make some tough financial choices.
So here’s a reminder:
You can know the explosive, scary, radical thing… and not take action until you are ready.
You can know the explosive, scary, radical thing… and not tell a single soul yet.
You can know the explosive, scary, radical thing… and keep your life exactly the same for as long as you want.
But just knowing it — clearly + explicitly, within your own heart + mind — it will make you feel calmer, more grounded, stronger.
It will help you.
And you can wait as long as you freakin’ want to actually move forward.
…
As always, I’m rooting for you in the week ahead. You’ve got this.
Katie
p.s. Interested in working with me for new 1:1 clients? I have a few spots open for new clients. I’m a skillful, experienced coach, and there is nothing that I love more than blowing my clients minds about what’s possible for them. (I know that’s cheesy, but it’s true.)
Learn more about working with me here.
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On confusion + not knowing what you want
Recently, several of my clients — all in very different situations — were confused.
Confused about what they want next in a job.
Confused about how to find more time, as a busy executive.
Confused about whether to continue in an unconventional relationship.
They told me the same thing: I don’t know what to do! Maybe finding an answer is impossible!
But with a bit of poking, a lot of listening, and some key coaching tools, it became clear: they did know what to do.
Of course, once they knew what they wanted... they had some other problems: fear, guilt, uncertainty.
If they know what type of job they want, will they be able to find it?
If they know what they need to cut from their schedule, will someone be mad? Or judge them?
If they continue in an unconventional relationship, will they get hurt?
These are not insignificant problems. These are clutch-your-heart problems, take-deep-breaths, make-sure-you-manage-your-anxiety problems.
But here’s what I told them: in almost every situation, it is typically better to at least know your true desires and opinions, rather than be “confused.”
Knowing your true desires doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get what you want.
And knowing your true opinion doesn’t mean that other people won’t judge you for it, or that you’ll never encounter unintended consequences.
But you’ll have to face the fear and uncertainty and potential judgement whenever you figure out what you want – so you might as well move onto that phase sooner rather than later.
…
For many of us, we feel lost in confusion, when actually, we are capable of knowing what we want and believe.
Is knowing what we want and believe the end of the road? Heck no.
But least spare yourself the suffering of “confusion.”
At least tell *yourself* the truth.
As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.
Katie
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Struggle to make decisions or know what you want? The brain has limitations - and here's what to do instead
A lot of my clients come to me with a problem that they have trouble describing. They’ll say something like: “my life looks pretty decent on paper, but it doesn’t feel right to me.”
They’ve often put off getting support because, well, is this a real problem? Or are they just being whiny?
But eventually, they can’t ignore it. What was once a subtle feeling of “not-right-ness” has gotten stronger and stronger. They’ve started to feel anxious or sad or insecure — like they’re trapped, or going through the motions in their lives. They sometimes wonder if they should quit their jobs or break up with their partners — do I just need to make a big, dramatic change?
They’ve thought about the issue from all sides…
…And thought
…and thought
…and thought about it.
There are many different things that can be useful in these types of situations. A coach can typically see things about you that you may find it hard to see on your own — and make suggestions that are tailored to your particular blind spots, or opportunities for growth.
But there’s one thing that I often tell them, and I thought I might tell you, too:
The brain has serious limitations in helping to chart the course of your life.
I say this as someone who was, for many years, a proud, card-carrying member of the “brain-first” club. I graduated with high honors from an Ivy League university, and then I worked at the top management consultancy in the world, for goodness sake! I was very focused on brainpower.
And yet…
And yet, even then, I felt a bit…lost. My life looked pretty good on paper, but I sometimes felt like the professional decisions I was making were a bit…un-anchored. I could make a pro-con list that would say one decision was right, and then make a pro-con list that would point me in the exact opposite direction.
I wanted a life that felt right to me, not just looked right.
So I worked with a coach. One thing that my coach taught me was that the brain has a tendency to spin. The brain can make arguments for just about anything — which is precisely why I was having that pro-con list problem!
…
I had, over the course of my life, heard other phrases. Phrases like:
Trust your gut.
Listen to your heart.
My body wanted (or didn’t want) that.
I’m sure there were moments where I “went with my gut.” But, if I was being honest, phrases like that seemed a little too woo-woo for me. I had a smart brain — I needed to use it.
My coach pointed me in a different direction.
She didn’t suggest turning off my smart brain. She just pointed out that there were other skills — ways of connecting to my “truth” that felt slower, deeper, and more true. Ways of knowing where there wasn’t so much fluttering + doubt. It involved connecting more deeply to my body, figuring out how to calm my nervous system, and listening in a different way.
(And to geek out for a moment: as it turns out, these kinds of “knowing” actually do use the brain, just often not the Prefrontal Cortex where most of our conscious thinking occurs. More on that here.)
…
So I wanted to tell you, in case you need it today:
Your brain is fabulous. Thank goodness for that smart Prefrontal Cortex of yours!
But also: Your conscious brain has limitations for charting the course of your life. In fact, it causes you to spin more than you really need to.
I’m in your corner rooting for you.
Katie
p.s. if you’d like to explore some different ways to chart the course of your life…may I recommend life coaching? It was very potent for me. If you’re ever interested in working with me 1:1, you can learn more about my approach here.
Or the archives of my blog are filled with lots of free ideas + advice. Check them out!
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Ever have a vague sense that something is "off"? Don't ignore it
Sometimes what’s wrong feels nebulous:
It’s a subtle feeling of “not-rightness” that we only get in moments when we don’t have a lot to do.
It’s a nagging feeling in our belly that we need to make a change.
It's like we can only “see” what’s wrong out of the corner of our eye. And it's blurry.
Even more confusingly, we might feel fine a lot of the time! We go to work, spend time with our friends, our partners, go to the gym, and enjoy delicious meals. A lot of our lives are great!
And yet, we can’t shake the feeling: Something isn’t right. Something is “off.”
Here’s my suggestion: don’t ignore that feeling.
That feeling is important. It’s even life-affirming, even though it might also feel vague and confusing. But precisely because it's vague and confusing, and because there are concrete things that we've gotta get done in the here and now — laundry to do, reports to write, friends to see — we have a tendency to push it aside. I'll deal with it later, we think.
And then we never actually deal with it later.
Here’s what I know for sure about this nebulous feeling of not-rightness: you have to stay in the question.
“Staying in the question” means not ignoring it. In fact, "staying in the question" means revisiting this feeling that something's off and asking, What’s wrong? and What needs my attention? and What am I resisting?
Feelings like this respond well to patient curiosity, but it may take some time. (And, of course, support can be quite helpful.)
As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.
Katie
Life doesn't feel right? You might be having a "breakdown" (And that might be a good thing)
One of the first lessons I learned when I trained to be a coach was about “breakdowns”. My coaching school, New Ventures West, defines a “breakdown” as “non-obviousness”*.
Take a moment to let that sink in. Breakdown is when you experience non-obviousness.
Something about your life doesn’t feel right, and it’s not obvious what the problem is.
You are in a new or challenging situation, and it’s not obvious what the next, best move would be.
You know what you should do or want to do, and it’s not obvious why you aren’t doing it.
Most of us intuitively understand that we might be in “breakdown” if something major in our lives was going off the rails —our career or our marriage, for example. But the radical thing about defining breakdown as “a state of non-obviousness” is that if we’re paying attention, we are all frequently in a breakdown.
Think about it. If we’re really paying attention, we probably find ourselves in a state of non-obviousness perhaps even multiple times a day.
It might not be obvious what the best way is to deal with a challenging relationship at work.
It might not be obvious what the best way is to prioritize our personal finances.
It might not be obvious what our goals are at work or at home.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re failing at any of those things. Most of us are quite competent people who make it through just fine, most of the time! It just means that if we were really paying attention, we’d notice that there are more situations than we thought when we’re not really sure what is best for us.
And when things aren't obvious, life can get really interesting. We can question assumptions and ideas that we thought were set in stone. We can explore and try new things, from a genuinely curious place. We can get advice and support because we don't expect to be able to figure it all out on our own.
If we let ourselves be in a breakdown, it can sometimes lead us to truly thriving in the world.
…
Which leads me to ask: In what areas of your life are you currently experiencing “non-obviousness”? How could you behave differently, by embracing that reality?
As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.
Katie
* New Ventures West was inspired by Heidegger’s work in developing this definition of “breakdown.” I am not a Heidegger scholar, but my understanding is that it comes from a combination of two terms in his work: “breakdown of transparency” and “breakdown of obviousness”.