The Art of Getting Unstuck (start here)
When you’re building a business, one thing you learn really quickly is that there is no arrival. It is a constant iteration.
In that way, it’s very much like life.
In life, we’re constantly learning, adjusting, iterating. How I live now, what fills my mind, how I navigate life… For me, much of it is different from how my 20-year-old self lived. I’ve learned and my needs have changed.
As a startup founder, I find that same iterative experience to be true. As I spend time with clients and learn more about their needs, I’m refining my offer, making it better and richer. And that's so great... for my clients and for me. Except when it's hard.
I've said from the beginning that I help get people out of paralysis and find momentum. I help them get unstuck. But as I evolved my offer, I kept getting hung up on how to clearly and succinctly talk about what I do.
As it turns out, I got stuck myself and didn't even recognize it (oh, the bitter irony!). Let me explain...
I started my coaching by focusing on one particular element of life: how to choose where to live when you could live just about anywhere. After all, a whole generation of us had more choice than ever, thanks to the shakeup of the pandemic. I called that program Where is Home?
Along the way, I realized that Where is Home? is classified as a hard decision, one where more than one choice can be right, but for very different reasons. (Eternal thanks to Ruth Chang for defining this so well in her 2014 TED talk.) So, I started to talk about how I help people through hard decisions.
But as I coached more clients, I began to realize this: I was making the decision easier not by being there in the actual moment of deciding, but rather by helping my clients gain confidence before and after the decision. If you think of a hard decision like a spike, what I do is help stretch it out and smooth it out. Before the decision, my clients gain confidence in small steps. In that way, the decision angst is softened. And after the decision, their confidence continues to build as we craft new small steps that provide a feeling of moving forward, committing, digging in.
At the same time, I started saying yes to coaching on a variety of hard things. Some were decisions: What’s next for my career? comes up frequently. But others weren’t decisions at all: How do I build a stronger relationship with someone I care deeply about? How do I build a community in a new place? How do I re-integrate exercise in my life as an adult when I was an athlete as a kid? How do I move forward with my ambitions as a writer?
So all that left me wondering: How do I describe what I do? As I pondered, I delayed the re-launch of this newsletter over and over again. After all, shouldn’t I kick it off at the very beginning?
In a phrase: I got stuck.
But recently, exhausted by the swirl (oh gosh, the irony again -- see my instagram handle), I realized that the only way out was through. I started regular posts on instagram and LinkedIn, talking about my work, what was resonating with clients, the things I was exploring as I grew the business. I tried on new angles like a toddler throwing spaghetti at a wall -- without regard for appearances, just curiosity for what would stick.
And of course, duh, I realized I didn’t have to wait and wait and wait to start re-start this newsletter. Because, just as I advise my clients, I didn’t have to find the perfect first step. I just had to step.
But a funny thing happened as I finally sat down to draft my imperfect first newsletter: As I typed, clarity emerged. I realized that the best way to describe what I do is that I use design to help people get unstuck on things that are important to them. I do this by helping them find the right small steps, not even forward but in any direction. I teach them how to take the weight out of those steps and to take them with ease. Because it's from the actual moving (in any direction, forward, backward, sideways, etc.) that clarity arrives.
Phew. There you have it. I started sideways myself and got unstuck. If you look at some of my first instagram reels, you'll really see the imperfection. Heck, if you look at the current ones, you'll see that still. But that's okay, because I'm feeling momentum.
So, welcome! Welcome to my blog, The Art of Getting Unstuck, to my coaching, and to a corner of the world where we’re committed to imperfect sideways steps that get us moving. If you’re stuck on anything that means a lot to you in life, I would love to hear what. If you've gotten unstuck recently, please share how! And if you know anyone else who is stuck, do invite them here. Together, we’ll make all the sideways, backwards, and forward steps we please until we’re exactly where we hoped to be.