Do I need more clarity or confidence?
How to understand the difference and use it to make important decisions.
Dear Ones, apologies for the tardiness of this letter! A bout with food poisoning and our travels put me behind schedule. We’re back home now and all is well (I’m feeling much better)! I hope this Sunday offers you a chance to relax and experience small moments of joy. All my love.
This question has been following me for several months, from my first meeting with my now career coach, Stacey. On our initial call, I rattled off a list of potential new endeavors- I could do something with my health coaching certificate, my husband and I could start an Airbnb business, and last but not least, I told her, I had an unfinished book in stall mode.
She listened patiently, reflecting back on the many options I had swirling around in my head. And then she made a comment that really bothered me. She said, “I think you need to get more clear on what you really want,” which honestly, was a perfectly normal thing to say, given our conversation!
But something about it didn’t sit well with me. Was it really clarity I was lacking? Why did I mention my writing as if it was a back-burner option when it’s what I really wanted to do the most? After stewing for several weeks, I realized it wasn’t clarity I was lacking, it was confidence. Here’s how I’ve come to understand the difference.
Clarity is the need for more information. A recognition that more data or experience might be helpful to move things forward. It’s more a question of what, or why.
Confidence requires trust. I often struggle with confidence when I don’t know have the answers for how or when- but my what is very clear. For example, once I realized I wanted to finish my book, I was able to address the underlying fears holding me back. This took me out of stall mode. I completed another round of edits, found an editor, made revisions, and wrote a pitch to start querying agents all within a couple of months (I also started this substack, an unexpected and delightful experience so far)!
Clarity, however, might take more time. While it can happen in a breakthrough moment, I often see it as a gathering process. A meandering path where the journey is more important than any outcome.
Sitting on a patio in sunny San Diego, it’s a journey I’m on now. Here because my husband and I are trying to determine where to relocate our little family, we are privileged enough to have a choice, but having a hard time making a decision. In the last six months, we’ve visited Boulder, Austin, Los Angeles, and now SD. While this is the first time I’m making a decision of this magnitude in a partnership, my suspicion is that we’re both needing a boost of clarity and confidence.
It’s hard to be in limbo with such a pivotal question mark hanging over our heads but one thing I’ve learned from past experience is NOT to move forward until it’s a resounding YES. “Doubt means don’t,” the wise Mama Oprah advises (and I take her wisdom as gospel truth). So, we continue to ruminate. Putting our desires down on paper, speaking our fears out loud.
I know when the time is right, as long as we keep taking steps in the direction we want to go, we’ll find a new place to call home.
What about you?
How do you make decisions?
Is there an area of life you need more clarity or confidence in?
What helps/hurts that process?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on big life decisions!