The power of "I don't know"

We put A LOT of pressure on ourselves to have all the answers in life - to have all the dots connected and a master plan.

At a glance I suppose that might sound like a good thing but there’s a difference between searching for clarity and obsessing over having all the answers.

- We obsess over knowing TODAY why someone broke up with us, why someone ghosted us or why someone rejected us or didn’t give us the time of day.

- We obsess over knowing the correct path to accomplishing something TODAY.

- We obsess over finding the blueprint TODAY.

- We obsess over connecting the dots moving forward.

The reality of life is we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to have all the answers way sooner than needed.

... and there’s something uniquely human about the way we go about facing questions in life.

We look around and we assume that anyone who appears objectively happy, fulfilled or successful… THEY have found the answers. And there YOU are with questions. And so you feel behind. You feel confused. You feel lost.

I talk a lot on the podcast about the power of WHY. I talk about encouraging ourselves to never leave a feeling, an anxiety or a thought unexamined. Why am I feeling this way? Why am I doing this thing? Etc.

WHY is a powerful question in the present to ensure you live with self awareness.

But beyond that… we need to chill out. We need to take the pressure off for a moment.

It’s OK to not have all the answers right now. It’s OK to say "I don’t know."

Being willing to not have the answers right now is how you end up finding the real answers tomorrow.

Answers finally comes when you embrace turning a page even if you don't understand the last one.

They come when you’re willing to write a new chapter, create your own closure or take a step forward… even when you’re hung up on the past.

We too very averse to saying "I don’t know" in life.

But when you embrace that simple phrase and you check your ego…. you give yourself freedom to just be. I’m sure you’ve felt that internal conflict that comes from pressure.

You've felt a conflict between your intuition and the SHOULDs in your life.

You SHOULD know what you're doing. You SHOULD know what your career path looks like. You SHOULD know what your soulmate looks like. You SHOULD know what you’re looking for.

There's something beautiful about not having all the answers.

I’m advocating for you to say "I don't know" more often.

… and be OK with what it means. Be OK with unfinished chapters. Be OK with unanswered questions. Be OK with living without a roadmap.

Right now… Not forever...

Be open-minded and don't put so much pressure on yourself.

If you feel clueless… be clueless. If you don’t know, don’t know. Don’t pressure yourself to attach to the first thing that makes the slightest sense. Don’t create a standard, a goal or a blueprint from the first thing that kinda clicks.

You don’t need all the answers right now.

This mentality means you're free to discover the real, true answers for yourself. ... not the answers you borrow from someone else and not the answers you feel pressured to say you found. YOUR answers. Uniquely yours. Based on YOUR life, YOUR experience and YOUR intuition.

It means you don’t go crawling back to the person who at one point made sense.

It means you don’t accept the first yes or opportunity because you see other people saying it's the right way.

It means you don't gravitate towards the comfortable…

It means you lean into life. You don’t sit back. You don’t give up.

It means you embrace "I don’t know" and the freedom to discover what's really true for you that comes with it.