How many of you resonate with the following statement:
“I don’t know.”
It can be a big picture “I don’t know” like “I don’t know what to do with my life” or it can be small items like “I don’t know what I want for dinner.”
I don’t know how to make this better…
I don’t know what I want…
I don’t know how to make these changes…
I don’t know how to end this confilict…
I don’t know how to make the switch…
I don’t know how to get healthy…
I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.
This is a deadly trap. Lemme tell you why…
“I don’t know” is a lie. It is a mirage. And ultimately, it can become very deceiving scapegoat that lets us tap out of our lives. It starts out innocent enough and then we become reactive and slowly but surely we begin to feel even more out of control and soon enough, we struggle with anger, resentment and bitterness because “nothing is going as planned” But we overlook the fact that we never had a plan because we “didn’t know”.
“WHOA JG. This is intense. I really don’t know what I want for dinner. That doesn’t seem to be deadly.”
Sure. Maybe it’s not… Until it is.
What happens with these subtle “I don’t know’s” is that they begin to seep into other areas of your life. We begin to use them as a crutch and then those crutches become something we depend on and then we create habits around those crutches and before we know it, the “I don’t know what I want for dinner” turns into “I don’t know what I want to do with my life” and we realize we have no practice in KNOWING.
So today, this is a practice in KNOWING.
I am a firm believer that WE ALWAYS KNOW,
but are we doing the things to allow ourselves to really see?!
Instead of believing the lies and the mirages of “I don’t know”, what if you did know?!
What if you could know?
What would life or this situation, no matter how big or how small, what could it look like if you DID give yourself permission to know??
How would you approach it differently?
I can tell you this… you’d approach everything WAY differently. Why? When you convince yourself that you don’t know, you’ll retreat, you’ll get passive, you’ll pull back, you’ll begin to shame, blame, guilt yourself and those around you, you’ll dig deep holes, and slowly but surely, you’ll shut down. BUT, when you begin to say “What if I did know or could know?” it evokes HOPE and you begin to lean into your life and wake up to a level of consciousness that feels nothing short of RIGHT.
HOPE is a killer ingredient in an AWESOME life.
Why? Because when you are hopeful there’s an answer and YOU’RE gonna find it, you lean in, not out. You begin searching and looking, instead of worrying about yourself and how others might perceive you or what others might say about you or if you win or lose.
You might not legitimately know right now, in this moment, but if you create the space, reframe the questions and give yourself the upper hand (and WAY MORE credit than you currently are), I guarantee you that with a little patience and persistence, you WILL KNOW!!!!
But, in order to shift a rather HOPELESS situation into one of HOPE, to go from “not knowing” to KNOWING, it will help you to consider a few things first:
What are the “I don’t know’s” giving you?
What is being unsettled and without direction giving you?
What do I mean by that? Well, by saing “I don’t know”, it’s giving you something or else you wouldn’t keep saying it. You see in all things, whatever it is we are hiding behind, settling for, agreeing to, it’s giving us something… whether it be consistency, the mirage of safety or security, avoidance of judgment, a place to hide, a chance to avoid the truth, a way to not feel the pain. Regardless of it being a benefit or consequence, it’s giving you something.
When you can identify what it’s giving you, then you will have information you need to take steps toward moving from behind it and actually be able to #getOVERit.
Let me give you an example…
I can remember a hard chapter in my life when my mom finally called me out for saying “I don’t know”, like A LOT. And if my mom has the courage to call out her Challenger, Fire Cracker of a daughter who for the most part she aims to not upset, you know I’m saying it way more than I should.
AND, she was right.
AND, the minute she said something, I was open and ready.
I was saying “I don’t know” about everything… where I wanted to live, what I wanted to do with my career, extra curriculum activities, hell where to eat for dinner… She was right, it was awful and it was a lot.
So she courageously asked me the same question I am posing to you:
WHAT IS “I DON’T KNOW” GIVING YOU?
I didn’t understand the question…
She dumbed it down…
“It’s giving you something. Otherwise you wouldn’t be holding onto it. Act as though “I don’t know” was a person” she said… “What is he/she giving you that you keep it around even though he/she isn’t serving you? There is a reason. What is it?”
The question was legit.
And the space in between the question and my answer was legit.
For most of us, SPACE is so freaking uncomfortable, we avoid it. Space to think. Space in our lives to really live. Space to reconsider. Space to embrace, meditate, feel. Yea… we don’t have very much of it in our lives. And because it’s uncomfortable and we don’t like it or understand it, we avoid it and therein lies more reasons as to why we have so many “I don’t knows” in our lives.
For me, my answer, once I took the space to hear myself was simple: It lets me hide. By saying “I don’t know”, I don’t have to put myself out there for fear of being wrong. By not knowing, I don’t have to feel wrong. I don’t have to appear weak, I don’t have to ask for help. I can isolate myself and block myself from truth.
BLEK.
But just like that, out came the weird truth. Also known as FALSE TRUTH.
False truths held within us feels legit and real.
False truth out the mouth makes everyone almost smile or throw up. Why? Because it’s false and we know it and when we shine some light on it, we recognize how false it really is.
Bottom line, what I have found is that most of the time, our “I don’t know’s” are giving us the flexibility to NOT commit.
It becomes our OUT. It’s keeping us watered down. It’s keeping us “safe”. It’s keeping us from NOT putting ourselves out there for fear of all these made up reasons. And it is so out of alignment with your greatest CONVICTIONS as people to DRIVE our own lives, MANIFEST cool shit, SEE cool things, be apart of amazing opportunities, and consciously choose life.
THAT is what’s killing you.
It’s not the “I don’t know” that’s killing you, it’s the misalignment that is killing you. It’s the subtle lies you’re telling yourself that’s killing you.
I am a firm believer that WE ALWAYS KNOW but are we doing the things to allow ourselves to really see?!
So it’s not always about DO I WANT TO KNOW but taking it a step further and asking yourself DO I WANT TO KNOW SO I CAN THEN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT?
Once you are committed to doing something with the knowledge you’re about to gain, then KNOWING becomes easy. Once you commit to losing the weight even though you know it’s going to be hard and take sacrifice and you’ve even envisioned what you will look like and feel like with all that weight gone, then you can begin to ask yourself the simple questions.
Here are questions to consider to UNSTUCK yourself from “not knowing”:
What do I not know? What do I want to know?
What is 1 thing that I could learn about that would help me to know even a little bit more?
Where do I start?
How would I feel supported?
What am I most afraid of and why? What do I need to do more of to make this easier?
What’s a few first steps? Who can help keep me accountable?
What will I do when I want to quit?
Wha are 1-2 things I need to let go of to make this easier?
Consider better questions and you’ll get better answers!
We ask ourselves the questions… then we avoid any answers. And by avoiding our own answers, we begin to lose a sense of self trust which only hurts our self confidence which then impacts our day to day decision making.
Stop the cycle of hopelessness.
You’ve got it in you. You can do this! But it’s going to need to start with a conscious choice…
Do you see how your hopelessness is self induced? Do you see how it is blocking you, not helping you?
Do you see how it is a choice? YOUR choice?
Do you see how it is giving you something?
If you can say YES to any or all of those questions, then lets peel away to get up and over this sucker shall we…?!?!
