The past few years have been full of change. We’ve all experienced, and will continue to experience big cultural, social, and economic shifts. And we’re all wondering, what’s next?
Many leaders we speak with are looking at how to move their careers or businesses forward. Recently, while sitting with an extremely bright and talented leader, I listened as she spoke about what’s next in her career. She’s at an inflection point.
Circumstances have allowed her the opportunity to make a big decision about what’s next and she is not sure how to proceed. Should she continue her career in established organizations? Or should she take a shot at starting something on her own?
She has a wealth of experience, loads of talent, and that magnetic blend of humility and ambition that just screams something big is on the horizon. The burning question, though, is which mountain top will she choose to set as her destination.
Does she continue with what she is comfortable with, or deploy her gifts in something new?
It’s scary. Anyone who’s started a business or changed careers knows this. Those nagging voices inside our heads don’t help very much:
“Who do you think you are?”
“What if you fail?”
“What if you’re not as good as you think you are?”
And on and on it goes.
We’ve all experienced this in some form. Maybe going to college, starting a new job, or a new relationship. We want to be able to hedge our bets with some degree of certainty in the outcome, but the reality is that life just isn’t very certain. And when we are uncertain about the outcome, it’s easier to stay where we are. Never missing that shot we never took, but also never scoring the game winning bucket.
When we’re given the chance to pick our next mountain top, we wish so much to be able to see the path between where we stand and where we are going. But we can’t, unless we choose to move forward, to let the trail emerge along the journey, with all its gems and jam ups.
It’s a lot like being in the woods at night with a flashlight. We’re at a fork in the path and we’re not sure which way to go. We shine the flashlight down each of the trails, but we can only see as far as the light allows us to, which can be scary as the woods rustle and pitch around us. Unsure of which way to go, we may wish to see just a little further down the trail for certainty. If we could only sit down and build a better flashlight! If only we could know what’s around the bend. But we cannot.
Photo credit @magnusostberg via Unsplash
Alternatively, we can pick a path and take a step forward, allowing us to see one step further into the dark. If we move to the edge of the light we can see, the path will emerge, one step of courage at a time. If the path feels right, take another step. It is that simple (yet difficult) act of courage to take the next best step that most often allows us to experience our next big adventure and it’s our confidence that unglues our feet from the floor.
Confidence is hard to come by and must be earned over time. Earned confidence is experience plus preparation, honed in the arena, for the arena. You can’t get it from books or podcasts. You have to get some reps.
Our friend has all the relevant experience necessary to take a shot at the next step, regardless of the route she chooses. But experience isn’t enough to go on because experience is built within the settings of our past. However, experience carries with us and can be applied to other settings when we are willing to prepare for what comes next.
Preparation is doing the work required to take you to that next opportunity. It can look like additional training, examining your options, analyzing prospective outcomes and developing appropriate courses of action.
But preparation is not to be confused with prediction. Those who predict what will happen rarely get unstuck. They are the ones who stay in that spot in the woods, certain that if they move forward the rustle will be a wolf, not a field mouse.
In Ranger school, the people who obsessed over the patrol grading schema were the ones that seemed to get stymied when they were in a graded position. The people who read their Ranger handbook and used it during their graded patrol learned that applying the principles to uncertain situations led to success. Time and again.
Because the principles are timely and timeless; flexibly applicable to any situation in the arena.
That earned confidence, the blend of experience and preparation, gives us the courage to move boldly forward, uncertain of the outcome, yet steeled by our reliance upon ourselves and our faith.
That confidence will be tested. Taking those first few steps into the unknown will undoubtedly excite and terrify us. And as we pick up speed, we will undoubtedly experience setbacks and stumbles.
When we are tested, will we sit back down, comforted by the small beam of light against the dark woods, or choose to drive on?
Drive on. Always drive on.
There are no answers at the trailhead. All the wisdom is out on the trail.
Photo credit @sammiechaffin via Unsplash
And by the way, despite what we tell ourselves, if the trail turns out to be wrong for us, we can almost always go back to the last fork and try again. Our setbacks teach us something new each time we choose to reflect, refine, and grow. Regardless of how many times you get knocked down, you will find that getting back up generates an earned confidence to carry you through the challenges on the horizon.
You’ll learn to move forward with commitment, planning to succeed and prepared for the unexpected. That brand of earned confidence will change the way you lead people, and how you approach your mission. It can be seen and felt from miles away. It’s contagious and it’s what our world is starving for right now - leaders of character, ready to get back up for their people, as many times as it takes, for as long as it takes.
No one is ready for a baby until they walk out of the hospital with their baby. No one is ready to start a business until they are months into running their business. And no one earns their confidence sitting down on the dark trail trying to build a better flashlight.
All that remains in those moments is to pick your mountain top and carry your light into the uncertainty of tomorrow taking one next best step at a time.
Thumbnail photo credit @nathananderson via Unsplash