#100 What If I Choose Wrong? The Question That Keeps You Stuck
It is one thing to take the next small step. It is another thing entirely when the road splits, two directions in front of you, and you have been standing there for months.
I made a full video on this. Watch it here, or keep reading for the short version.
You are not gathering information
Here is what I see almost every time. You are not looking for the right choice. You are looking for certainty. So you read another article, listen to another podcast, ask your partner, ask the friend who has done something similar, ask the person at the braai who happens to work in that industry. It looks like research. It is confirmation.
Two questions keep you standing there. Is this the right choice? Will I be okay? They feel like thinking. They are the brake. And a brake is not a wall: you are pressing it yourself, usually without noticing, and then wondering why the car is not moving.
The guarantee hiding inside the word right
Ask what you actually mean by the right choice. Not the dictionary meaning, the meaning underneath. When we say right path, we mean guaranteed. Guaranteed that it will suit me, that I will manage it, that it will flow, that the results will come reasonably soon. You are not trying to pick a road. You are trying to buy insurance, and no amount of research sells you that policy.
Here is the trap that follows. You finally choose, and a few months in you hit a hard part. If this were the right path, it would be flowing. It is not flowing, so it must be wrong. So you go back to the crossroads and take the other road, which also has a hard part. That loop looks decisive from the outside, and every lap costs a year. The difficulty was never evidence that you chose wrong. The difficulty was the road asking you to become better at something.
The better question
When there is no clear winner between two options, they are usually more or less the same. You win a bit here, you lose a bit there. That is why it is close. It was never a right-or-wrong problem. It is a commitment problem.
So ask this instead: which path takes me closer to the person I actually want to be? Jump ahead ten years. Which of these two roads grows you into the version of you that shows up as your best version possible, more often, for longer? That question has an answer, and you can answer it today, standing right where you are, without any new information.
In 2008 I stood at my own crossroads with five open doors, reading four books a week and asking everyone I trusted. Everybody gave me encouragement. What I was actually after was a guarantee. What finally moved me was not clarity; it was two guys asking for help with some inner work. Once I was moving, the question stopped being which path is right and became how do I do this. That second question has answers.
This week: write down the two roads, one line each. Next to each, answer this. If I walked this road for ten years, who would I become? Notice which answer you would rather live inside. That is your road. Then take one visible move on it before Sunday. And when the hard part arrives, say this to yourself: this is not evidence that I chose wrong. This is the part where the road makes me better.
If you have been standing at a crossroads for months, it is worth knowing which groove is holding you there. The RUT Diagnostic is free and takes three minutes: Routine, Uncertainty or Trance.