What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do
The “I Don’t Know” Block
How to Get in Touch with Your Inner Truth
After hundreds of intuitive readings and coaching sessions, I’ve learned that when a client keeps telling me “I don’t know” it means that they’re wrestling with a decision that feels very risky. What I learned in helping clients and myself move through the “I don’t know” block, is that we often tell ourselves, “I don’t know” because we’re not ready to admit the truth to ourselves, and quite often this is because we’re not ready to take action on what we really want, or maybe we’re not ready to confront or share our truth with others, face our fears, or leave our comfort zone and be uncomfortable.
Ultimately, “I don’t know”, buys us time. Unfortunately it buys us time in a way that is completely unproductive. There is another way, and I’ll share that way in a minute, but first I want to share three client examples. The names have been changed to protect privacy.
My client, Jackie, was happening having an affair and Rebecca was struggling in her marriage and Lucy was wrestling with a major career decision. All of them kept telling me, ‘”I don’t know what I want.”, “I don’t know what to do”, and they keep throwing up their hands saying, “I just don’t know anything anymore.”
Which was interesting because when I intuitively tuned into each of them, I felt they each definitely knew what they wanted. Jackie wanted to divorce her husband and be with her new guy. Rebecca wanted a divorce and the freedom to spread her wings in a new direction. Lucy wanted to follow her passion to become an energy healer. They weren’t allowing themselves to know their truth because they were afraid that once they admitted what they really wanted, they would have to take action and that action might completely disrupt their lives.
Separating the Knowing from the Doing
What I told them, and what I’m telling you is you can know your truth without having to take action. For things that feel super risky, it’s helpful to separate the knowing what you want, from doing what has to be done to get what you want. At least in the beginning, give yourself permission to know what you want without having to take action.
Whew. Isn’t that a relief?
It was for these women. When they gave themselves permission to not act, they were able to admit to themselves what they really wanted almost immediately.
Step #1: Admit Your Truth to Yourself
Sometimes your true desire has been buried inside for years or decades even. So giving yourself some time to get comfortable with your truth and knowing what you really want is a good idea. It gives you the space to accept and hopefully embrace your truth. With that in mind, I’d like to share my process for getting past the, “I don’t know” block. The overall idea is to separate the knowing from the doing. So step number one is to admit your truth to yourself.
The first and biggest step in finding clarity is allowing ourselves to admit what we really want, to allow our true heart’s desire to be heard by our own heart. To know what you want you might ask yourself a few questions, such as. What do I really want? Do I want to live on my own? Do I want to try a new career? Do I want to live with this person or that person? If I could have anything I wanted what would it be?
To move yourself beyond self in prescribed or culturally prescribed limitations, the next question you could ask yourself is, “If I wasn’t worried about anyone or anything, what would I do?” Then ask yourself, “What does my heart want? What does my soul yearn to experience?” These questions will help you get to your own unique truth.
Step #2: Be With Your Truth (Take No Action)
Step number two is to be with your truth without taking action. Just be with a knowing of what you want. Your mind will want to try to figure out how to make what you want happen or it will tell you all the reasons you can’t have what you want. Most of the excuses it gives is just fear talking. It’s not the truth. In my personal experience, when I admit what I really want, whether it’s when I wanted to do more art or start a new business, the fearful messages in my brain got a lot louder. I learned this was a good indication I was moving towards something hugely important for my heart and soul. So whether my brain wants to hurry to figure out how to make things happen or whether it’s telling me all the reasons why it can’t happen, I use the same approach, which is to tell my brain to hush. I tell my brain,
“I hear you, but I don’t have to figure this out right this minute. And, I know you’re afraid. But right now all we’re doing is getting comfortable with knowing what we really want”.
This practice redirects our brain from its tendency to anxiously overthink things and worry about the future. Although our analytical left brain really wants to help us figure things out, it isn’t helpful at this stage. Instead, we need time to sit with things. We need time to explore what our next steps might be. And in some cases we need time to consult with our trusted advisors, close family friends, a therapist or a coach. We also need time to access our intuition and inspiration for guidance and new ideas. But that comes from a different part of the brain, the right brain.
So while we’re giving ourselves time to get used to our true desire, it’s also helpful to purposely spend small chunks of time doing something that activates the right brain, such as creative pursuits or going for long walks or drives.I want to share a specific example of when I let myself know my truth and I sat with it for a while. So this was probably in …. let’s see it was 2010 I believe. And I had taken a short term stint working as an employee to start up a advertising and marketing department for the US branch of a global manufacturing firm. Most of my career I had worked for myself as an independent marketing consultant, and I’d only been with this company for about two years when I started to really feel the calling to pursue my art.
I had recently discovered an industry called art licensing that just seemed like a perfect fit for my art. And I had read an article about a woman named Kathy Davis who had became successful in that industry as a licensed artist and reading that article just really lit me on fire.
But like I said, I had a full time job so when this longing and this heartfelt desire to pursue a career in art licensing started to bubble up, I just allowed myself to sit with my truth for a while, to know that this was something that I definitely wanted to pursue. I didn’t know how I was going to do it at the time. I just allowed myself to sit with that truth. Eventually I made the decision to leave that company and as fate would have it, they offered me a contract to handle their global website design, which ended up giving me the freedom to spend two years designing and creating a portfolio of art that I launched at the Surtex show in New York City.
Making the decision to leave that job enabled me to do contract work in the morning and then pursue my art licensing and the afternoon, which for me turned out to be heaven. But in the very beginning, before I had all the solutions and the answers, I first had to admit my own truth to myself and I didn’t act on it right away. I allowed myself to sit with it and explore all the various ways I could make that desire a reality.
Okay? So I want you to know though, as you’re sitting with getting comfortable with your truth, your left brain is going to act up and it’s going to get anxious about trying to figure things out, and when it does that, just remind yourself that you’re only job, at this point, is to get comfortable with accepting the truth of what you really want. And so sometimes I do this by telling my brain,
“I know what I want and I’m going to trust that everything is unfolding for the highest good of all, myself included. When it’s time to act, I’ll be guided to it or I’ll know it.”
And then I let it go.
Step #3: Preparation, Possibilities & Research
Coming to terms with what you truly desire may take days, weeks, or even months. But at some point you’ll notice you’ll start feeling itchy to really start taking action and to figure things out in a more concrete fashion. This is a good indication that you are now ready to explore the possibilities. So step number three is preparing yourself by doing some research and exploring those possibilities. Finally, we get to put our racing mind and our analytical left brain to work. The best process I know for generating lots of new creative ideas is one that I taught in my creativity workshops about 10 or 15 years ago.
I learned it from the 1926 classic book called The Art of Thought by Graham Wallas. The book outlined four steps for generating ideas which are preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification or action.
Make a List of All of Your Current Ideas
So let’s start with preparation. During the preparation stage, our goal is to explore all the options and I mean all the options. It’s important that we don’t limit our thinking to only the things we think are possible or doable. Instead we want to explore, and list every single thing we can think of that might make our desire happen. Even the crazy ideas that seemed far fetched or pie in the sky.
I like to start by creating a list of my current ideas about how I might be able to make my desire happen. This gives us the opportunity to expend some of our anxious thinking and thought energy about making our true desires happen. Just making this list puts our mind at ease a bit.
When you make your list, I want you to be sure to list every single idea, no matter how small or how outrageous it is, exhaust every possible idea you currently have. Just write all of it down. The goal is quantity here, not quality, so generate as many ideas,no matter how wild they are as you can.
For example, if you want to divorce your spouse and you have two children to care for and you currently don’t have a job outside of the home, your list might include something like:
- Get a job or two or three.
- Find a babysitter
- Meet with an attorney or a mediator.
- Get a divorce.
- Become a stripper to make more money
- Move in with my parents or my daughter or a friend.
- Collect change on the street.
- Go back to school and get a degree.
- Become a nanny, a hairdresser, a bartender to pay bills while I figure everything else out.
- Or Do nothing and live like this forever
As you can see, I listed every single option I can think of around that topic. Even the far fetched or crazy ideas. Again, the goal is quantity, not quality. You want to list your crazy ideas, as well as the seemingly doable ideas. List every single possibility you can think of. Once you’ve listed everything you can possibly think of, set aside that list. If you check in with your body right now, after you’ve made that list, you’ll notice it’s feeling a little bit better. This is because you took action and expended some of the emotional and mental energy that’s been spinning inside.
Explore and Research Other Options
The next step is to explore and research other options. So here, we start looking at how other people have done what you want to do and we read blog articles, watch YouTube videos, we go to the library, or we might read a few biographies.
If there are people in your network that have done what you want to do, invite them to lunch and pick their brain. If your big dream is to start your own business, then consider meeting with someone at the small business and development center or the service Corps of retired executives, both offer free business startup counseling and workshops.
Step #4: Incubation – Let the Ideas & Research Simmer
Once we’ve made our list of possibilities and completed our research, the next step is incubation. Once again, it’s time to set aside our preparatory work and let all that we did simmer for a while. It’s time to let your ideas and research incubate and germinate. The goal is for all the ideas and information we collected to bump up against each other, to blend and generate something entirely new from the mashup, something that is perfect for you because it came from the alchemy of your brain and inspiration.
The best thing you can do while things are incubating is to go do things that you find enjoyable and absorbing. Give your brain a rest from analyzing your situation and everything about it. New ideas will not come from your analytical brain. Your analytic brain is a great tool once you know what you want, but to generate new, fresh hitherto unknown ideas, we need the right brain. And we slip into the right brain and theta levels of consciousness when we’re doing things we find pleasurable and absorbing, like gardening or knitting, painting, puzzle, making, playing pool, or even taking a long scenic drive. How much time one needs for incubation varies from person to person. Sometimes it’s days or weeks. At some point though, new ideas will float to the surface, or drop in out of the blue. For many people, new ideas come while driving, showering, walking or falling asleep or even from our nighttime dreams.
Whenever inspiration and a new idea surfaces, write it down immediately. I can’t stress this enough. All too often we get this really cool idea and we think it’s so fabulous that we’d never forget it, but we forget it. So when you get that great new idea, immediately pull over and write it down. Or if you like, you can even record it into the voice recorder in your smartphone.
Step #5: Illumination – Create an Action Step or Plan
Step number five is illumination and choosing an action step or plan. By now, you’ve generated some new ideas about how to make your heart’s desire happen. It’s time to choose the top one or two ideas that inspire you the most and run with those. Please know there isn’t one right or wrong choice to make here. Simply choose the idea that feels the best, that makes you feel the most alive, and do it. More clarity will come as you take action and refine your desires.
So let me give you an example of this. When I transitioned from full-time marketing communications work into becoming an intuitive energy healer and reader, I had to put myself out there and do the work. And there are many ways I could do the work. I can do sessions in my home, I can do the work at a wellness center, I can do the work in partnership with other people or as part of our group. And what I learned by experiencing some of these various scenarios was which one fit my life, my lifestyle the best. I currently work at a wellness center. I’m an independent practitioner, so I have hours there. But what I learned is that while I love having in-person sessions what I really love is working from home doing sessions by zoom. My goal is to transition my work from full time in person sessions to online sessions. This also gives me the freedom and flexibility to work form anywhere, which something else I also value.
Sometimes we just don’t know what we don’t know until we go out into the world and experience it. I couldn’t have known that this is the way I like to work best unless I had tried it several different ways. So a lot of times we get clarity by going out and doing things. So I just want to encourage you that as you are pursuing your heart’s desire, you’re going to have some attempts. So you’re going to try different things. You’re going to get clarity along the way and that’s okay. That’s how this process works.
Step #6: Take Action and Move Through the Fear
Step number six is to take action and move through the fear. I want you to know that when you’re getting ready to take action, you know you’ve finally admitted to yourself your heart’s desire. You’ve sat with it, you brainstormed all the ideas, and now you have a really much better idea of what those first two or three first steps and moves are going to be. I want you to know a lot of fear is probably going to come up. In fact, taking that very first step towards our dream to making our heart’s desire reality, it’s going to bring up a lot of fear. I want you to know that fear is normal. It doesn’t mean you did anything wrong. It doesn’t mean you’re heading in the wrong direction. In fact, one of the ways to know if you’re still heading in the right direction is to ask yourself, do I really want what’s on the other side?
Do I really want my heart’s desire? If the answer is yes and fear is coming up, all it means is that you’re stretching from your comfort zone into your passion zone. So keep moving forward and keep moving through that fear. Another tip to help move yourself past inertia or that that initial fear is to simply take one tiny baby step, just one little tiny baby step in the direction of your heartfelt desire and then another baby step and then another. You can break your dream down into bite size chunks and just keep taking baby steps towards it. We can climb a mountain by taking one baby step at a time.
And if you need more help moving beyond the fear, download my free worksheet called Naming and Moving Beyond Fear at the bottom of this page or consider working with a coach like me. I live for helping people move beyond fear to pursue their dreams.
Step #7: Get Support and Keep the End Goal in Mind
Number seven, is to get support and keep the end goal in mind as you step towards your heart felt desire.
It’s super important to surround yourself with a support system. It’s important because there will be bumps in the road and there will be some failed attempts along the way. That’s normal, but we all need someone we can vent or cry to who will hear us out, who will remind us why we’re doing this and who will encourage us to get up and keep going. A good support system might include close friends, family members, a therapist, a life coach, a mentor, or even a trusted advisor. The individual or individuals we choose for this role should be trustworthy, objective, and able to set aside their own personal desires to help you move towards yours. Lastly, be sure to celebrate significant milestones. This is especially important if obtaining your heart desire will take months or years to accomplish. Celebrating the milestones will keep you motivated and help you enjoy the journey more.
For example, when I first began working on this podcast, I decided to write and produce six podcasts all at once. I wanted to have a lot in the queue. When I first launched the first three episodes live, it was definitely cause for celebration. Woohoo. I launched my first three podcasts! First time ever. It was a lot of heart-felt work and so it was a good idea to celebrate, to commemorate and enjoy that part of the journey. Other milestones might be when I’ve published 10 and then maybe 50 and then a hundred. So for you, if you’re pursuing or you’re thinking about changing careers, your first, my milestone might be inviting someone out to lunch in a similar industry. Celebrate that, you overcame that fear and you took action. Yay me, this always cause for celebration. But if your dream is a longer one, like starting a new business. You first milestone might be when you get the paperwork for forming a business entity, order your first set of business cards, get your first client or customer or sell your first product, then make your first $10,000 and so on.
And I’d like you to consider that maybe the very first milestone to celebrate is the one where you overcame the, I don’t knows, and made the decision to embrace your heart’s desire. It’s truly important to celebrate the milestones because in the long run it’s really so not, not so much about obtaining your heart’s desire as it is about what you experience and who you become as you reach for your dreams.
Summary of the 7 Steps
In summary, the seven steps to help you move through the, I don’t know, blocks are:
1. Admit your truth to yourself.
2. Be with your truth for awhile without taking any action.
3. Prepare, research, and consider all the possibilities.
4. Incubation: Let all the ideas and research simmer for a bit.
5. Illumination: Choose an idea or an action step and make a plan. Step number
6. Verification: take action and begin moving through that fear.
7. Get support and keep the end goal in mind.
Questions to Ponder:
- •What do I really want?
- If I could do anything I wanted what would that be?
- If I wasn’t worried about anyone or anything else, what would I do?
- What does my heart want?
- What does my soul yearn to experience?
Have a fabulous day,
Related Article: Tips for Making Tough Decisions
This 4-page worksheet walks you through a helpful questioning and journaling process to help you understand and move beyond the fears that are keeping you from feeling your best.
