The imminent beginning of a new business. The redundancy payment from a life long career. The separation from a long and winding relationship. The beginnings of something new. The endings of something meaningful. Whether you’re looking over your shoulder at someone else, or straight ahead in your own direction, there are elements of change happening all around us.
What has struck me most over the last month or so through my conversations with individuals and my own business refocus, is the reminder of the stages we go through before we reach our final destination on that journey – Challenge, Confusion and Clarity:
- The Challenge to our thinking and the decisions easy or difficult that we have to reach -or those decisions we have to work with when they have been made by someone else.
- The Confusion over the rationale, logic or intuition that constantly takes us 3 steps forward and 2 back.
- The Clarity we long to reach that hitherto brings calm, resolve and revitalisation.
What I have become clear on after years of experience of working with people and looking back at myself, is that all 3 stages are equally important. You cannot reach Clarity until you have been through the murky waters of Confusion. And without Challenge, the final outcome may not be the most deserved.
For many, working through these phases becomes a logical step by step approach. For some, they may dart backwards and forwards like minnows. On occasions, the journey along all 3 is very short. For many, the period becomes arduous, turgid and draining - feeling almost like quicksand.
But my message is simple - accept the phases that occur as they are natural. Do not be too quick too reach clarity as you may miss something vital if you have not truly worked through the muddy waters. Find ways of coping during times of confusion – as what will emerge from this when you least expect it, is the answer to your most profound question. Our minds work in mysterious ways and somehow just seem to fathom out the unexpected for us.
There is an art in working this treadmill. My number one ingredient is to know yourself above all else (a recurrent theme in my writings I know!) and be able to spot where you are. Nobody else will do this for you – after all you can’t expect people to read your mind can you?.
Challenge, Confusion and Clarity - just part of the route map to change. Grow to accept it wherever you are!
