Where We Get Stuck (Step 1)
The gulf fritillary is known for transformation
Often when we’re stuck on something big, we’re stuck on lots of things. For instance: Where should I live when I can live anywhere? becomes inextricably linked with What does my career look like? and How am I caring for my family?
This is part of what can get us so very stuck. We start to play with one thread and before we know it, we’ve got a knotted mess and can’t even find the end of the string.
The way through this is counterintuitive. At the risk of overburdening a metaphor, we think we need the whole thing untangled in order to make sense of it. In fact, we gain most by doing the opposite: focusing just on a piece of the puzzle. Inevitably, when I work with someone on a big question (like Where is Home? or What’s Next for My Career?), getting clear on one begets clarity on the other.
So, I advise beginning by asking A Good Enough Question. Not, The Right Question (because that becomes paralyzing in itself). But just a good one. A Good Enough Question is one that you can take action on, one that you care about, and one, like goldilocks would suggest, that is not too big and not too small. Also, by and large, a good question is one that gives you between a 3 and a 7 on the “emotion” scale. You care, so it’s not a 0 or 1, but not so much that you can’t see straight, so it’s not a 9 or a 10. This is the kind of question you can make real progress on.
But what if you don’t know what your Good Enough Question is? Well, I’ve seen three main buckets of such questions, which I’ve taken to calling Decisions, Derivations, and Desires.
Decisions
These are often decisions where more than one choice can be right, but for different reasons. The common vernacular is that they’re called hard decisions, but I prefer to call them bountiful decisions. I believe language matters, and their bounty is the reason we get stuck: we genuinely have more than one amazing path forward. I’ve had many of these, the most recent being choosing where to live when I could live anywhere. I’ve also evolved my career multiple times, lived in 6 countries, etc. and had plenty of bountiful decisions that got me stuck. I used to hate them with a passion, but now I realize they were in my life to force clarity on what’s really important to me.
Some of the Good Enough Questions I’ve helped clients on in here include:
Where is home? when you can live anywhere
What’s next for my career?
What’s next for my relationship?
Derivations
This is when something sidesteps you in life, either intentionally or accidentally, and your identity as you’ve known it changes. You lose a job, you retire, you graduate, you become a parent, you become an empty-nester. In these moments we can get stuck because suddenly we’ve lost a piece of our identities. It’s happened to me more than once, most recently when I left my dream job after ten years, and suddenly I wasn’t Amy from IDEO anymore. Who was I, then?
Some client questions have included:
What do I want life to look like after I graduate?
Where might I spend my energy in retirement?
Who do I want to be post-dream-job?
Desires
Sometimes we get stuck not because something is prompting us to shift (a decision) or has shifted (a derivation), but because we want to make a shift and there is no prompt or nudge. While they seem lighter than the others, they can actually be the hardest, because nothing is forcing movement. I call these desires. Some questions I’ve helped clients on in this category include:
How might I rebuild a relationship I care about?
What does it mean to add exercise to my life when I used to be an athlete?
How might I gain momentum in my writing career?
How might I build community in a new place?
Notice what’s true about these questions: they’re focused on a specific area of life. But equally, they’re open enough to create space within that area. They’re also hopeful and positively framed.
Finding your Good Enough Question
One of the first ways to start to loosen stuckness is to simply notice what it is you’re stuck on.
Sometimes that’s really clear. For me a few years ago, I knew I wanted to find a new place to call home, but I didn’t know where. It was a bountiful decision, because I had multiple really good options that felt right for very different reasons. In these cases, the question just writes itself: Where is home when I can live anywhere?
Sometimes it’s a lot murkier. For instance, I started out this year with a clear ambition: to grow my business. But I found myself spinning a couple of months into the year. I knew I was seeing green shoots for growth, but I didn’t know whether they needed water, fertilizer, sun or shade in order to flourish. I didn’t know which next step to take. To come up with my Good Enough Question, I reflected on what my bigger hope was: I wanted this business to flourish while I did as well. So, I asked myself: How might I scale this business in a sustainable way?
And yet other times, you’re in the ball-of-yarn scenario, where there’s a swirl of stuckness, with no clear thread to pull on. To untangle that, I like to encourage what I call the Dusty Rooms Reflection (download it here). This reflection prompts you to consider elements of your life that are well-tended and elements that are feeling neglected, or dusty.
Once you’ve done the exercise, your Good Enough Question will often be sitting in one of those Dusty Rooms. Perhaps you’re a musician who has let time and space to create lapse. Your question becomes: How might I make music a core part of my life again? Or maybe you’ve lost connection with your adult children, and your question becomes: How might I re-connect with my kids in a way that’s healthy for all of us?
What’s a bad question? It’s often too big (How do I make my life better?) or too small (How do I write 10 chapters a day?). Or it’s too emotional (How do I repair my relationships with my family, starting with my toxic uncle?). Or it’s just not very important to you.
Your Good Enough Question will vary as life goes on, as will the things you do to move forward. But what can remain consistent: a designer's approach to getting unstuck. In subsequent blog posts, I’ll share more about what to do to gain momentum again once you have your Good Enough Question.