What to do when you don't know what to do

Are you struggling to make a difficult decision? Can't make up your mind? Facing a dilemma? Confused, stressed or in danger of spinning out? You may need to tidy up the habits of your mind. Adversity, as someone said, doesn't necessarily build character: it reveals it.

Habits of mind . . ? I like the definition of Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick. They write about critical thinking and in that context define a Habit of Mind as knowing how to behave intelligently when you don't know the answer.

A Habit of Mind, they go on to say, " . . . means having a disposition toward behaving intelligently when confronted with problems, dichotomies, dilemmas, enigmas and uncertainties the answers to which are not immediately known. [This] requires drawing forth certain patterns of intellectual behavior that produce powerful results."

I've come to understand that "knowing what to do when we don't know what to do" is often more important than possessing information or other practical competencies. It's a skill we at EncourageMentors work hard to enhance in our clients. Rather than becoming dependent on our services or reliant on others to rescue them at times when they're stuck or amidst a crisis, we advocate their making habits of certain practices which they can self-initiate and trust to produce helpful results at those times. (Yes, there will be other such times.) It beats the heck out of trying to develop them from scratch when everything seems to have turned to custard.

Here are seven of those simple practices I have established for myself. Once I begin to use them I gain increasing objectivity about the dilemma or crisis I'm facing, I'm better able to avoid being consumed by it, and I have easier access to clear thinking and to those of my competencies the situation calls for.

Add them to the tool-kit you'll open when you next face these challenges: that's the tool-kit labeled Here's what you need to do when you don't know what to do. If the tools are rusty or if you're out of practice, don't expect to find them easy to use. They'll be most called for at times when accessing them is difficult, so practise them often. Simple does not necessarily mean easy.

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must first learn to do with diligence."
(Samuel Johnson)

Create space

Research from the field of Emotional Intelligence has clearly demonstrated that we cannot learn or grow well when we are under constant stress. If you are already running at 100% capacity, you may not have the time or energy to do justice to this situation and learn from it. Growth requires attention, processing and time to plan and effect change. Free up some space in your life to make room for reflection (hindsight), learning (insight) and direction-setting (foresight). If possible, do nothing for a while or at least put “gaps” between one activity and the next. Take some time off without distractions. Be alone, away from what normally fills your mind. Engage with a counsellor, coach or mentor to create discipline or a framework around the space you need.

Contain the situation

As a creative alternative to freaking out, spinning out, lashing out, denying reality, running away from the issue or becoming obsessed with it - sufficiently limit, enclose or safely restrain the situation long enough to learn from it. "Sit" for longer than you might ordinarily, with the pain and discomfort of not knowing the answer or way forward. Immediately you begin this, you increase the odds of gaining objectivity about the issues and reduce the likelihood of becoming consumed or overwhelmed by them.

Keep the issues simple, not allowing them to become more complex or complicated by, for instance, unnecessarily alarming other people, lashing out at them or frightening yourself by exaggerating, awfulising or catastrophising. Get help to remind yourself of what you may forget, under stress, on your own. Give the issues the time and attention they deserve. Balance that attention with other important matters in your life.

The practices described below, are likely to aid this one.

Contextualise it

Place the current situation within the context of your personal or professional Big Picture, especially to locate its relationship to wider events in your life, your history, personal journey or Life Purpose. Ask yourself: What is this for? What does it have to teach me? When have I confronted a similar issue in my life? What are the connections? Who is the common denominator? What did I learn last time?

Exercise self-responsibility

This begins by accepting that you are entirely responsible for your own life, that no-one else is here to take responsibility for you or fill your needs. Although it is wise to ask for support and skilled guidance, getting the effects you wish to experience requires your willingness to generate all the causes of them.

Practise metacognition

Understand that projection makes perception: what's going on "in here" is what you project on to otherwise neutral situations. You choose what you see. You give everything you see all the meaning that it has for you.

Learn to monitor and mediate what you are thinking as you are thinking. Become adept at modifying your thought processes, especially to undo the emotional chain reactions that lead you to become dispirited, freaked-out or to act in knee-jerk fashion unaware that connections between beliefs, thoughts, feelings and actions create our own reality. Learn to deliberately replace disabling beliefs and thoughts with those which empower and enable skillfully mature responses.

Systematically problem-solve

Define, clarify and establish the root causes of unwanted events in your life. Find creative options for dealing with them. Plan and systematically manage your remedial or improvement plans. Learn to always ask and deal with, "What is my own part in creating this problem?"

Practise self-care and nurturing

Engage in those disciplines of self-care, self protection and nourishment you have found at other times to produce calmness of mind, objectivity, rest, endurance and stamina: sufficient sleep, regular exercise, meditation, wise eating and maintaining positive self-regard, for example. Maintain or increase these habits during stressful times.

Trust

Trust (sometimes despite all the evidence and your emotional urges), that there is most likely a benign purpose in the current dilemma useful to your development and progress through life. Understand that, as at other times in the past, this issue will work out; that you can now call on greater experience, insight and wisdom. Have the confidence to appreciate that this benevolent purpose fits somewhere within a Bigger Picture that will eventually become apparent, if it is not yet clear.

Talk to us for further information or support with these ideas.

Tom Watkins
© Copyright 2002 - 2007 Tom Watkins Group. All rights reserved.

Select and contact a Mentor if you'd like to discuss these ideas or want support to make progress with your own issues.

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