Over the past two weeks, many changes have been happening to the people around me with an underlying theme; they are finding themselves in a place of uncertainty about where to go next.
From companies shutting down, forcing some to relocate, to projects deprioritizing, pushing some to change roles, to campuses closing down, putting some in limbo about their next step.
There’s a lot of uncertainty lingering around.
So as is my habit, I’m going to consolidate multiple conversations into one for the benefit of all:
When you know, you know
For some reason, people come to me for advice, but the only person who can turn on the beacon is you – or rather, your instinct.
Instinct is a powerful thing, and you’re going to have to listen to it. More important than that though, is actually silencing the noise around you in order to listen to it.
Of course, that is so much easier said than done, because everybody around you will have an opinion about what you should do with your life. Unless they’re contributing to your livelihood, you might want to be careful about taking their advice.
One caveat here is how easy it is to mistake the voice of instinct for the voice of fear, so it is up to you to tell them apart.
You have all the necessary resources within you already, and everything else is within reach
As I met with all of these people living under the lingering shadow of uncertainty, I repeatedly found myself hung up on electric generators, and how they use a process based on the interplay between magnetism and electricity to convert mechanical/chemical energy to electrical energy.
The basic principles behind how a generator works: A magnet near a wire rotates to induce a steady flow of electrons, thus producing electricity.
Why did I get hung up on this image?
And what does it have to do with uncertainty?
Because it’s a good metaphor for how you can will something into creation.
Imagine you’re the conducting wire. You have all the potential inside of you, but you need the motion and the magnet. You can think of the magnet as the available opportunities and the motion as your own actions stepping towards those opportunities.
I’ve repeatedly written this on my blog;
People talk about the sun, the wind and the waves as renewable resources, but the ultimate renewable resources are within us humans; creativity, love, decisiveness, honesty, and sincerity….
Uncertainty exists on a spectrum, which means it will always be present. And when things happen, you just have to go inside and connect with your inner source of power.
I spend a lot of time with entrepreneurs, and I’ve always wondered what differentiates them from the rest of humanity. Among other things, here are a couple of traits:
– Bias towards action: It’s almost maddening how they are always in a state of motion.
– High bounceability factor, or the ability to jump back from setbacks: How they react to losses and challenges is interesting. While the rest of us might turn away from another venture after striking out on one, they’re always dusting themselves off and trying again. So you might see someone whose shop gets robbed, and they’ll be like, “At least nobody died,” and open shop a few days later.
What do you really, really want?
I write this because this is actually the one that I struggle with myself. I can tell you elements of what I want (e.g. I want to be financially self-sufficient enough to not be in a position to borrow money, and I want to continue writing these blog posts).
But one thing I know for sure is, clarity comes from actually doing something, because you can read as many posts/books but until you apply the knowledge you’ve gained, and actually gauge how you feel doing it, you won’t know what it is you need to include in your life, and of course what you need to remove.
Know what moving forward looks like and how to identify it
You have to find a way to quantify (and track) progress. This is the main idea behind leading a structured life by design rather than default. Without a system, you wouldn’t know whether it’s time to move directions, change strategy, etc.
Finally, and here’s a concluding point, once you start gaining more self-awareness, you might realize that the thing you lost – the project, the job, the place you were living – was actually slowing you down, and having it out of your life was actually a step forward in the grand scheme of things.
“It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn’t matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.”
Paulo Coelho
Interested in joining my mailing list? Add your email address here: http://eepurl.com/gn_RcD
I promise not to spam.