The certain

The opposite of certainty is doubt. Doubting yourself, your abilities and your sense of worthiness is the first stage in a downward spiral towards feeling disappointment and despair.

All of us want more certainty in our lives. Certainty is the sense of knowing that this goal will be reached, that this action will lead me one step closer to a meaningful milestone in my life. With certainty comes greater confidence, and with confidence comes a belief that things will work out for the better. You know in your heart that you are in flow and that flow is taking you ever closer to your desired goal.

When you are certain, you know what you want to achieve and have a plan with clearly defined steps to take. You are under no illusions: you know it will take energy, effort and enthusiasm to achieve the goals. You also understand that there will be challenges, that there will be roadblocks along the way and you will need to take some unplanned but necessary detours, but you are certain that these goals will
be achieved.

People who are certain can be recognised by their high degree of clarity, confidence and control, which generates momentum as they pursue their goals. This momentum seems to propel them even faster and more effortlessly towards their objectives; things just go right for them. Some may call it luck, some divine intervention; for others it can be best summed up in the unattributed quote, ‘The whole world steps aside for the person who knows where they are going.’

So do you have certainty in your life when it comes to your direction, relationships, career, business results and finances? Are you living each day with certainty? Becoming certain is the goal for all of us to work towards. If you don’t feel certain about your future, then let’s discover where you feel you are situated now and in the next chapter I will suggest a way in which you can move forward as you pursue your passion, purpose and plans.

The lost

Have you ever felt lost? As though you were moving but not making any progress? Perhaps your life seems to be passing you by. You are travelling through life but you don’t seem to be arriving at any particular destination. Your direction is dictated by life, circumstances and other people, rather than being created and then pursued by you.

How do you tell if someone is lost? I ask people, ‘What do you want to achieve?’ The response is often ‘I don’t know.’

‘What do you think you’re achieving at the moment?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Tell me what you have achieved in the past.’

‘I don’t know.’

If you don’t know where you have come from or what you have achieved in the past, you don’t know where you are in your life at the moment and you don’t know where you are going next — that is a good definition of lost!

Feeling lost in your life is a draining emotion. The more lost you feel, the more lost you become, and the more you will doubt what is possible. Most of these people don’t know what they want to do or have never taken the time to think through what they really want to achieve. They have become busy being busy; rather than taking control of where they are going, they have allowed life to consume them.

Because doubt has gained a firm foothold on the mental muscle to dream of what is possible, these people never stop to think about what could be achieved and who they could become, so they live with doubt daily. These people are recognised either by their low level of self-confidence or by their excessive overconfidence (even when they know everything is not okay).

They are often defeated before they actually start, and just as they begin to think about what they could achieve, their subconscious kicks in to remind them of their past failures and how comfortable it is to put up with mediocrity. Because mediocrity produces less disappointment, less to worry about and less expectation of you by those around you.

Do you feel lost?

The frustrated

Ever been frustrated with yourself? You know you are capable of achieving more but for some reason you just don’t feel like you are moving in the right direction. You don’t feel like you are making any progress. I believe frustration is the opposite of progress. I know for myself I experience the greatest levels of frustration when I feel I am not making progress even though I am taking action. This comes from the fact that you know what you don’t want but don’t know what you do want. Can you relate to this?

The conversation I have with some people goes something like this:

‘What do you want to achieve?’

‘I don’t know, but I know that it’s not this! It’s not this job I’m doing or the relationship I’m in or these financial circumstances I have.’

My response is simple: ‘Okay, what do you want then?’

‘I don’t know!’

You can feel the frustration in their voice and the anxiety in their whole being. If I was to dish out some tough love, it would be to say, ‘If you don’t know what you want, then you deserve what you’ve got.’

The truth, however, is that these people are suffering from living in the past while being consumed with their present circumstances, and rather than thinking about what they are capable of achieving they are focusing on what is not right or not working for them. For these people, a mind shift is required before a physical result can be obtained. They need to understand that their past does not determine their future. They need to break the mental cycle of believing they can only achieve what they did in the past by beginning to dream again. You see, it is hard to live in your past when you are focused on the future.

Do you feel frustrated?

The confused

Have you ever known what you wanted but had no idea how to achieve it, or been unsure where to start or what the right steps to take were? If you feel like that now, you are probably experiencing some confusion.

People who feel confused know the goal they want to achieve. Defining the steps, strategies and solutions they need to implement to achieve their goal is the challenge. It is not what to achieve, but how to achieve it that is causing them confusion. These people have a desire and a dream but sometimes lack the knowledge of how to turn their dream into reality. While it is not as bad as feeling frustrated, confusion can be very restrictive, because when you don’t know what to do, you tend to do nothing. The challenge is that these people are looking for the right way, rather than a way. Perfectionism creeps in and rather than making progress towards their most important goals, they wait for everything to be perfect before they start.

If you are confused, your goal is not to try to get the plan right — your goal is to get the plan started. Then you can get it right. Taking action is the solution. Now is the time for progress, not perfection, because if you wait for perfection, you will never get started. Creating momentum in your life could be as simple as just taking a single step or action, making that first move. If you are focused on taking the first step, life has a habit of showing you the next step to take, and the next and the next. Create momentum towards a goal you desire and the plan will unfold around you.

Do you feel confused?

The unclear

Ever had too many choices? With so many opportunities to pursue were you unclear which was the right one to take? If you are experiencing that situation in your life right now, you are most likely feeling unclear. You are trying to determine which is the right choice for you right now.

A typical admission by someone who is unclear about the right goal they should pursue in their life, career or business goes something like this: ‘I have this opportunity to pursue this role in this organisation, or I could go back to school to gain a degree in this discipline, or the company I am working for now has a new role working overseas in this country. I am unclear which one I should go for.’

So how do you think most people respond?

When there are too many opportunities most people choose to wait, rather than to start. Remember how Edison described genius as ‘1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration’. You will be inspired as you take action, gain momentum and make progress.

Most people ponder, pontificate and procrastinate as they weigh up the pros and cons in search of a solution. They start to second guess their gut instinct and get stuck in a paradox of perfection paralysis — waiting for all the planets to align in their life before they take their next action or pursue their next goal.

It is not that these people have not succeeded in the past. They have often achieved great results. It is just that they are daunted by the question ‘What should I do next?’ My belief is simple: no opportunity is right or wrong, but some have a greater degree of right than others. So rather than picking the ‘right’ one, you just need to pick one and make it right for you. Remember, it is only an opportunity if you take advantage of it.

The unsatisfied

From the outside looking in, it looks as though these people have got it handled — good job, nice home, great holidays, high achiever … but they are not satisfied or fulfilled. There is a void that has not been filled by their past achievements and regardless of what goals they set and achieve they do not hit the mark. The common solution for these folks is to set bigger goals, work harder, strive more and be better. They tend to focus on the next what. But after a while it just doesn’t cut it anymore and the feeling of being unsatisfied takes root in their mind, body and spirit.

These people usually find it difficult to discuss their feelings or current mindset because most other people don’t get that this person could have anything to be concerned about, and it is sometimes easier to keep up the charade than to address the internal circumstances and lose their credibility.

The challenge for these individuals is to find their true purpose, to discover their real goals, and to pursue a life that is bigger than them, that is outside of them and that will live on beyond them. In other words, it is achieving goals that gives them a sense that they are not just accumulating money, material possessions or meaningless titles.

This is a hard merry-go-round to get off, as you don’t want to give up the success you have! It is a matter of identifying what is important to you now. What does meaningful work look like to you? What passions do you want to pursue still? People love what they do but they are not in love with what they do. It is not a matter of quitting, selling up and having a sea change; it is just about falling back in love with your life, with who you are, what you do now and what you want to do next.

Which mindset do you most identify with?

Each of us has experienced all six of these emotional mindsets at some stage during our working and home lives. You may be experiencing one emotional mindset in your work life at the moment while experiencing another in your home life. This is where doubt starts to creep into your perspective. For any change to occur the first step is to identify where you are right now. Then you can apply one of the six transition solutions that will move you forward towards certainty and beyond, which is what we will discuss in the next chapter. Read on!