When faced with the unknown and all its possibilities how do we want to be?

How often does hesitancy arise in saying ‘yes’ to something new because you don’t know how it will be or don’t know if you can do it? 

When you are walking or driving somewhere unfamiliar where does your attention tend to be? 

Imagine you are walking or driving somewhere new and you can only see where you might be five minutes from now but never where you are now. What would that be like? 

If we think about what we control, it all exists in the now. And sometimes the only way to learn to do the journey is to go on the journey.

So if we took the approach that only the now, this unique, specific now, can teach us to navigate it, moment to moment, then how can we best prepare ourselves to learn from it? 

And what are the lessons we can tease out to help us to navigate each moment and to be more of what we want to become? 

Keeping our eyes on the road. What do we need to best navigate in the now? 

Picking up the travelling analogy at the beginning, if you are focused too far ahead you risk losing your way or even crashing into what is right in front of you. You may have heard the instruction: keep your eyes on the road. 

The uncertainties of whether to commit to something are all future possibilities, what you can focus on is the road right in front. Like driving, there are things you learn to do if hazards come up or your way is diverted. 

What do you need to focus on what you can do to embark on the unknown path? 

Preparation may even be part of this. We’ve spoken about the value, and limitations, of maps before. What may be the equivalent that helps you to embark? 

What else and who else do you know you find useful if going on a journey? 

Anticipating the what ifs. 

Still there are all those possible doubts and uncertainties, what can you do about them? 

Firstly, what are they? How may you tend to them if they arise or happen? 

Research by Angela Duckworth highlights the value of If…then… planning. If… then… plans are taking a goal, considering what could get in the way and asking ‘if that happens, then what will I do?’ 

When looking at two groups Duckworth asked one to come up with their goals and the second group to come up with their goals and to create if…then… plans. Her research found that the second group had better outcomes than the first. 

What could come up that is stopping you trying? If it does come up what will you do?

What if only the me after the journey is the one who can do it?

If you’re thinking ‘I probably can’t get to where I want to be’ you are partly correct because most likely the ‘I’ that gets there will not be the same ‘I’ that you were when you started. 

If we think back to the travelling metaphor, you are always a more experienced traveller after every trip, sometimes that experience is significant, sometimes less so, but, even incrementally, it makes a difference. 

Remember when you last learnt something. At one point you couldn’t do it and at another you could, and so you go from being someone who cannot to someone who can. What happened in the middle? 

It can be easy to forget the steps between, the learning journey, that takes us from not being able to do something to being able to do it. In fact we can really see that as a never ending process of being able to do it a little bit more than last time. 

Not ‘if…then what do I do’ but ‘If…then how do I want to be’? 

What if it isn’t just about knowing what you will do when we meet obstacles but how you want to be? 

You can never plan for every eventually, let alone know every possibility, what you can do is decide how you want to be regardless of how it goes? 

What are the principles for how you want to be? 

How will these principles serve you on the journey you are considering? 

In considering all of this, what if I am already being who I didn’t think I could be and doing what I didn’t think I could, just a little, right now?

So what is the journey you are resisting or doubting your ability to complete? 

What do you need to navigate that journey? 

What can you do in the now to navigate it? 

How do you want to approach the now so that journey becomes more possible? 

Who are you becoming in being these things now? 

What if we all focused more on the now as the path to where we want to be, just by being as much of who we want to be when we get there, now?