How much time do we spend questioning ourselves around what we should be doing?
Should I go to the gym today? Should I find a new career? Could I be more fulfilled right now?
At some point, we all go through a period of questioning ourselves. Sometimes life throws us curve balls which make us reassess what we want – I questioned what I wanted to do with my life after getting turned down for numerous promotions whilst working in Government. But I was unclear of where I actually wanted to go. I was spiralling around the different possibilities and feeling lost.
without clarity of thought, it was hard for me to focus on any single thing. I thought about whether I might want to move to a different job, sector or country. The possibilities could sometimes feel overwhelming because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I was basing my life upon a bunch of general job descriptions.
Later down the road, I became clear that I wanted to move to Brussels. Partly through circumstances of Brexit putting a deadline on my decision, partly because I wanted to build a new life for myself. Once I had made the decision, I put a lot of commitment behind it. In total, it took me about four months from working through my CV, applying for jobs and practising my interview skills before I ended up making the move. I had to be very intentional that I would prioritise finding a job that I wanted, whilst also being open to the possibility that it would not fit exactly into what I might have imagined. Without this clarity of thought, I probably would have questioned myself mid-way through the process. I may have simply gave up, returned to the drawing board and looked at plan B, C or D.
Unsurprisingly, being unclear on what you want makes it hard to ever achieve it.
Evidently being clear is an extremely beneficial thing. It means we have figured out what we want. But people often don’t know how to get this clarity of thought.
Clarity comes from all sorts of places. Some people have divine inspiration which demonstrates to them what they want to do. After all, there are many stories of people who simply wake up one day with a grand vision that they dreamt of, after which they go ahead and put all their effort into it and often even achieve it.
But this inspiration only comes when you’ve immersed yourself enough in a field to understand about it. I’m not going to suddenly wake up tomorrow believing I want to be a carpenter. I know nothing about carpentry, nor have I ever examined a piece of wood with any particular fondness or inspiration. But if I were to spend time around carpenters in my spare time, or get more into crafting as a pursuit, it makes it much more likely I might consider it.
Unlike carpentry, Moving to Brussels was something I’d thought about for some time, and my background was in EU affairs. I visited it for work several times and did a Masters in Belgium already. It wasn’t some crazy decision that I chose by throwing a pin on a map, but rather a related activity to what I’d already been doing that would set a new, exciting chapter of my life.
If you want to know what you want to do, but you’re not sure about how to go about it, then its perhaps time to go out into the world and explore the options out there. There may be something that you want to do that you simply do not knows exist, or do not know enough about. So go out, speak to people. Go out and explore. Get out of your thoughts and into the real world. See what people are up to. See what makes them happy, or makes them unhappy.
It’s best to do these things before you find yourself in a crisis of confidence, so that you have places and people to call upon when those moments might hit. Equally, now is better than never.
Over time, you will start to gain an idea of the different options you have in your life, you can start to look at what those might mean. You may expect to simply find something that captures your imagination – a new hobby or cool sounding job – and are clear straight away. For many of us, this’ll take more time. Quite often, we need to dedicate ourselves to a pursuit for a while to genuinely learn to love it. Professional cyclist would have probably not enjoyed biking too much when they were kids and were constantly falling off their bikes. It was probably frustrating and may have left them hurt. But once they got the flow of it, that’s when it got interesting for them.
When we’ve done the process, it becomes a lot easier to get clarity. I started writing and coaching just to try it. It was okay at first, but it wasn’t amazing. I actually stopped for a long time because I got in a rut. I ended up feeling pressurised to do it, and ended up losing the enjoyment of it all. But once I had a break, I got back into it, and now am really committed to them because I have built a genuine enjoyment out of doing both. From there I’ve seen how I can fit my pursuits into my life – hence the birth of this newsletter.
I now have absolute clarity that I want to be writing these articles weekly. I have no intentions of stopping for the foreseeable future. I also made a clear commitment to finish the book I’ve been writing by November, and to have more coaching conversations with people over the next few months.
I made these commitments because I was clear in my head that this is something I want to do. Without the noise and doubts in my head, it’s a lot easier to be bold and ambitious. Writing a book or setting up a coaching business was not something I would have seriously considered a few years ago. Yet I am very clear now that this is something I want to do. Because I have this commitment, I’m willing to do what it takes to make it happen, even when that means working on them in evenings and weekends.
What you want to do will look very different to me. You may not really know exactly what that this right now. But if you follow the process you will get there. Being clear with yourself doesn’t mean you have to make grand life decisions forever – committing to something does not mean you can never change your mind. In fact, sometimes being clear of what you want actually means deciding to stop doing something. Yet, the clarity is so beneficial because it takes the focus away from ‘should I be doing this’ to ‘what do I need to do to make this happen’. And this is an extremely powerful shift.
When you are clear on what you want to do, the biggest barrier to achieve it – your mind – is no longer an obstacle. You then are in a space where you’re ready to go out there and do it.
How clear is your thinking?