Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 604 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! It is especially good to be with you today, I feel like a million bucks compared to last week so even though it’s cloudy I have sunshine following me around. HA. So interesting what a good dose of contrast will do for you…..anyway, Im happy you’re here, I am grateful for each one of you, I really am. Now,
I wonder how many of you guys have a decision looming that you really need to make but you’ve been putting it off and putting it off. You just tell yourself “I don’t know what to do”. And most of the time that statement puts us in the “stuck position, where we shift our thoughts to something else so we don’t have to thing about it, in other words we distract, distract, distract because it’s easier to not think about it. It feels like the “I don’t know” is the death blow to action. I would like to present that we can reframe that “I don’t know” into a really good way to actually make decisions that feel right. Huh. I would like to present that…
It’s okay to not know.
It Is OKAY to NOT KNOW, in fact sitting with the not knowing and being ok with it is such a good way to make decisions. I’ll tell you why I think that…..
I’ve been sick. Like, actually sick. Not the dramatic “I have a cold” kind—this was the kind where you’re on the bathroom floor at 3 a.m. wondering if you’re dying. I’m better now. Mostly. Still being a little dramatic about it.
Anyway. This week, I finally sat down to meditate. The session was called “Not knowing is the most intimate.”
We just… repeated that.
Not knowing is the most intimate.
Over and over.
I thought it would be annoying. It wasn’t. It was useful.
Because my head’s been loud. Ideas, decisions, should-I, shouldn’t-I. And for once, I didn’t try to fix it. I just let it be noise. And something shifted.
Afterward, I’m sitting there dwelling on that idea that not knowing is ok—and this other thing pops into my head. Something I’ve heard many times but I probably first heard it on the Tim Ferris podcast and that is:
“If it’s not a definite yes, it’s a no.”
So now I’m thinking about these two ideas side by side:
• Not knowing is the most intimate and
• If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.
And I’m like… wait. Aren’t these opposites why in the world would they seem similar to me?
One says sit in the gray. The other says pick a side.
But the more I turned it over, the more I realized—they’re not opposites. They need each other.
You can’t get to a real yes without spending time in I don’t know.
Not the fake “I don’t know” where you’re avoiding the thing.
I mean the real kind—where you’re paying attention, but you’re not forcing an answer.
Because most decisions aren’t yes/no at first. They’re maybe, kind of, I feel something but I’m not sure.
And if you rush that—either by forcing certainty or by staying stuck—you miss the signal.
And, I’ve done both.
I’ve done the Stuck:
Several years ago I wrote this little book that I loved. I spent a long time working on that thing, and it was fun. But in my mind I came up with this reason or that reason for why I couldn’t launch it yet. I was waiting for the “perfect” yes moment that never came. It’s still in my pages Doc, no-one has seen it because I’ve been stuck waiting for the perfect moment and maybe sadly the permission to publish it. From who….I don’t know……ha. You see when you’re stuck, there’s often a reason and a lot of times the reason is just behind your subconscious, you kind of know it but you also kind of don’t want to admit it.
I’ve also done the rushed.
Rushed:
I’ve jumped to say yes before before really thinking it through and that feels just as bad as being stuck. Because I ended up working on a project that I knew was problematic and eventually it sort of blew up….and I did the thing where I said “I knew I shouldn’t have agreed to that”. I knew, so why didn’t I listen. Because I said yes to quick before my subconscious could talk me out of it.
So yeah being stuck and jumping in too soon, neither one is a recipe for being wildly successful.
But when I let myself not know—without pressure, without timeline—something different happens.
The yes shows up on its own. Or the no does. And it’s clean.
Eric and I at one point seriously considered moving to Germany. His company had a domicile in Germany at the time and we really thought it would be fun. I’m a jumper, I will jump right in, Eric is a ponderer. Sometimes I think too logical about things, so we balance each other nicely. I was excited for an adventure, I pictured our glamorous life of traveling all over Europe together without a care in the world. But after we went through the pros and cons and let it simmer, we decided moving to Germany wasn’t for us. It’s good that we took the time to ask the hard questions. Why do we want to move so far from family? We are really close to our family and that would have made me sad. Another question we asked is…What would life really be like in Germany for both of us together and separately?
Eric would have been gone A LOT so I would have been alone in a foreign country all by myself quite a bit. He would be flying odd, long late hours which is not good for his health. And then also What do we imagine our life would be like vs what it’s like now? We travel quite a bit to Europe as it is, we travel lots of different places, not just Europe. We don’t have to live in Europe to travel Europe. Ultimately sitting on the move and letting it simmer brought us both to the same conclusion. It wasn’t for us. And It was a relief when we made the decision. It felt right. And it was the right decision because it would have been really bad timing for us to leave because my little sister was just starting college, of which we were a huge part, my grandma ended up passing away just a little after that. It was good we didn’t jump in. I realized the fantasy was this whole idea of a glamorous life living abroad, when really the glamour is there for us because we travel there and we can have that and not miss out on our life in America. It was so good we were ok for a while with not knowing…it allowed the quiet voice to be heard. That’s why it felt like such a relief.
Here’s what I think is happening:
When you stop needing to know right now, you give the quiet part of you room to speak. The loud voice gets lots of airtime through all of the should’s, all of the ego, all of the fear, all of the pressure….
But, The quiet part sits patiently waiting to be heard. It’s not exerting it’s force. It waits until you can hear it.
The part that knows—but only when it’s not being shouted over.
And that part? It doesn’t speak in sentences. It speaks in feelings. Hunches. A tightening in your stomach. A random daydream. A song that won’t leave your head. An idea that won’t quit following you. That quiet voice…..
You have to get intimate with not-knowing in order to hear it.
I used to think decisiveness was power.
And it is—after you’ve done the work of not knowing.
Without that, decisiveness is just noise.
With it? It’s clarity.
So here’s a thing you can try. Nothing fancy.
Pick one thing you’re stuck on. Could be small—where to eat Friday. Could be big—quit the job, send the text, say the thing.
For three days:
• Don’t decide.
• Don’t research.
• Don’t ask 12 people.
Just notice.
When the question comes up, say—out loud or in your head—“I don’t know yet. And that’s okay.”
Write down what you feel. Where. When. No judgment.
On day 4, check in.
You’ll probably know.
If you don’t? Wait longer. But you will.
This isn’t about being passive.
It’s about being accurate.
Most of us make decisions from noise, from that loud voice from—pressure, FOMO, guilt, momentum.
This is the opposite. It’s subtraction.
Remove the rush. Remove the story. What’s left?
That’s your answer.
I don’t have a bow for this.
No “trust the universe” spiel. No vision board prompt.
Just this:
It’s okay to not know.
And if you can sit with that—really sit—without flinching…
The knowing comes.
Not because you forced it.
Because you finally got out of the way.
If you try the three-day thing, I’m curious what will happen. For me
I’ll be here. Still not knowing half the things I thought I’d have figured out by now.
And weirdly… that’s starting to feel like enough.
