I am grateful for: the "I don't know, I'm figuring it out" phase

“I don’t know, I’m figuring it out ”

As someone who usually has the answers- answers to my friends seeking advice, answers to what I want, answers on what my future will look like-this an extremely hard phrase for me to accept and let alone vocalize.

But it’s one I’ve been practicing in this current chapter of my life because I really don’t know and I really am just figuring it out.

My life is full of question marks right now.

And I’m learning to be okay with that. I’m learning to be okay with not having answers.

I’ve been through many unknowns and phases of uncertainty. But this current phase is as unknown as unknown gets.

I don’t know what my next career step is, what country I’ll live in, and to be honest I don’t really know what next week will look like and what city I’ll be in. There is something scary, liberating, exhilarating and overwhelming about this all at the same time (just depends what day you catch me on).

What I do know (but have to keep reminding myself) is that certainty is an illusion. As much as we want to control what is happening around us and plan what our future will look like, we truly never know what life will bring. And that is okay as long as we are okay with the not knowing.

This is hard. Especially hard when you grow up in a society where our path has always felt carved out for us (where I’m from it’s: college, job in big city, marriage, kids, suburbs, Florida).

But what we can practice having certainty on is that we are exactly where we are meant to be and everything will work out as it is meant to if we continue to trust and be proactive.

As many people know, I try to live my life from a place of gratitude- which is much easier to do when there aren’t so many questions marks floating around.

So right now I am constantly trying to bring myself back to a place of gratitude for being in the “figuring it out.” To be grateful for having the time, support system, freedom, and resources that allow me to create space for myself to figure out how I want the next chapter of my life to look.

For me, this “figuring it out” phase is full of “getting to know myself better” activities.

It is full of journaling, reading books and listening to podcasts by people who expand my mind and who are living a life I resonate with on a soul level. It’s full of conversations with friends, strangers and networking connections to hear about other people’s life and career journeys and then tune into what about their story lights me up and what dims me inside. It’s full of traveling to different places and noticing what type of environments bring out the best in me and what type of environments drain me. It’s full of self inquiry of who I am at my core, what skills come naturally to me, what my values are, what interests excite me, what type of people energize me. It is full of self-reflection on what my past life and work experiences have taught me and what I do and do not want to take with me into this next chapter.

I think this past summer I’ve been asked over 180 times “what’s your plan now?” And while I would LOVE to be able to give you an answer (and I’m sorry for the people I did give answers to when I was coming from a place of fear of the unknown), my answer right now is “I don’t know and I’m figuring it all out.” And that is okay!!!!

So for anyone else who is facing any sort of questions marks in your life, I encourage you to use this time to get to know yourself a bit better and see where these question marks guide you.

What questions are they bringing up for you? Where do you feel you are giving answers out of fear? Where can you settle in and get a bit more comfortable in the not knowing? Where can you create more space in your life to get to know yourself better and uncover what you truly desire? Where are you making decisions out of fear rather than practicing trust and patience?

Also remember that’s it’s okay to not know, it’s normal, and it’s part of the process of this lil thing called life!!

Here for you always.

Love,

Mik