The yes, no, or maybe so

A large portion of the women we work with find themselves at a point in their career where they are yearning for something different. They feel that they have reached a plateau, a ceiling, or a crossroads. They are asking themselves the question “what’s next?”

They have collected some experiences that help them understand what they DO NOT want. But what they DO want is not that clear. They know they want to love their career (or at least really like it). They are wondering what it will take to accomplish that.

And they want those answers NOW. The pain of uncertainty they are feeling is real. When evaluating any opportunity, they crave knowing if it will or will not give them what they desire.

Unfortunately the answer is most often...maybe so.

Which is not what they want to hear. But it is the truth.

Humans have been going to other places for the answers F-O-R-E-V-E-R. My own desire for certainty and knowing as a child drove me to obsessively play the 90s fortune teller game. And to shake the magic 8 ball repeatedly. What strikes me about those games now is that the answers always fall into one of three categories.

Yes
No
AND...Maybe so

I hated getting the ambiguous 3rd category of maybe. And while I could just ask these games the same question again until I got a more definitive answer, real life does not work like that.

The answer to most questions is “maybe so.” 

And the likelihood of knowing up front if something is really really right is practically nill. We often don’t know until we are actually IN IT. Not standing on the outside wondering. Even if something does feel certain, we may get surprised once we are in the actual experience of it. We are all making educated guesses. Figuring it out as we go.

Even though it feels like everyone knows in advance. The spoiler alert is that we hear about most people's decisions after they have happened. And they are being told to us in retrospect. Yet we take them into our minds with the false idea that what is clear to someone now was clear to them before they did it. Trust me, it was not.

It is critical that we understand this difference. And to come to terms with the frequency of an answer being “maybe so.” When you are not able to do this, you will kill the play, levity, and experimentation required to actually learn if and when something is right for you. And to approach the path of experimenting with any sliver of self-compassion. If you aim for things that are certain, you will rob yourself of big leaps into unknown territory. When what you are craving is something different, if you optimize for certainty you will land, frustratingly close to the same thing you are doing right now. You will get into your own way.

We are urging you to build a tolerance for the idea of “maybe so.” This does not mean staying in eternal decisiveness by defaulting to “maybe.” We are suggesting that you stop standing on the sidelines waiting for the maybes to magically transform into clear yes and nos. Release yourself from requiring certainty and jump in.

An invitation to reflect

What do you imagine might happen (best case scenario) if you require 20% less certainty? What about 50% less?

Shine On,
Alicia