Turn Confusion into Clarity in 3 Simple Steps

“While having clarity is a beautiful thing. It is not an end state; it is iterative. It moves us along on our chosen path. As we travel that path, we change and our landscape changes. When we reach our goals, we can quickly find ourselves enveloped in a haze of confusion that is anything but clarifying.”

— From Live a Bold Life: Your 30-Day Mission to a Fearless Future

Have you ever felt this way? Where your once clear path, casts you into darkness and you are left groping to find your way?

I have.

I spent the first few months of 2018 alone, scared, and unsure of what my next moves should be.

I’d had clarity, enough clarity to quit my job and move to the south of France. But, that clarity quickly gave way to confusion. You can read more about my adventure in my latest book, Live a Bold Life: Your 30-Day Mission to a Fearless Future.

Confusion leads to indecision, self-doubt, and second-guessing and in turn, anxiety, stress, and lowered self-confidence and self-esteem. This creates barriers to living your best life. It takes courage to make decisions that enable us to have more satisfying experiences and live more satisfying lives.

This is especially true when faced with the confusion of our changing selves and landscapes. So what can you do to move forward and feel confident in your decisions and next steps?

3 Simple Steps

1.Become aware of the voice of self-doubt

Bring your voice of self-doubt into the light by recognizing the negative or draining emotions associated with it. Awareness is the first step because it allows us to stop, assess what we want to experience next, and move in a different direction, should we choose to.

Questions to ask yourself:

• What am I telling myself that is keeping me stuck?
• What emotions are associated with these thoughts?

2. Identify your core values

Ask yourself how having these thoughts, feelings, and emotions is keeping you from being true to your core values. Our core values are principles which guide and ground you. When we honor them, we feel happier and in alignment with ourselves.*

This step will help motivate you to get off the fence, make a decision, and move forward.

Questions to ask yourself:

• How are my draining emotions serving me? What do I gain from ruminating in these negative thoughts and feelings?
• How are these unproductive emotions hindering me? What is being stuck in negative emotions keeping me from experiencing?
• Is this the way I want to continue to feel?
• How do I want to feel going forward?

3. Evaluate your goal and begin the decision-making process

The third step is to begin the decision-making process. First, evaluate your goal based on your answers from above, then ask yourself what the actual need is? The real need is not what you want or even what is most comfortable. The true need is what must happen that will change the situation in genuinely satisfying ways while honoring your values.

Questions to ask yourself:

• What are the things that need to happen at a bare minimum to reach the goal?
• What are all the needs for which my decision must account? Budget-wise, time-wise, values-wise, relation-wise, etc.

This process will help you become more comfortable gaining clarity in the midst of confusion. Make these three steps a habit and you will soon feel more at ease when it comes to moving through self-doubt and indecision.

* You might find it helpful to do a values assessment to your values to the forefront. Click here to access the Values Assessment I’ve created.