The Inner Conversation

“I Don’t Know What I’m Doing”

I had one of those moments last week where I looked around my life - my work, my relationships, the decisions I've been making - and thought, "I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing." 

Not in a crisis way, just in that slightly offputting way where you realize you've been winging it more than you'd like to admit.

Maybe it was watching my neighbor confidently install a sprinkler system while I still can't figure out which houseplants need sun versus shade. Maybe it was sitting in a meeting nodding along while having no clue if the strategy we were discussing was brilliant or completely backwards. Maybe it was just Tuesday.

The world celebrates certainty. LinkedIn is full of people who have confidently figured it all out, sharing their "5 steps to success" and "the one thing that changed everything." Social media shows us highlight reels of decisiveness and clarity. Even our friends tend to share their conclusions, not their confusion.

But I've started to suspect that most of us are improvising more than we admit, making educated guesses and hoping for the best. Maybe some people are just more comfortable with uncertainty, or at least better at hiding it.

Not knowing what you're doing isn't a character flaw - it's the human condition. It’s not like there’s a secret manual for how to live life. We're all learning as we go, making mistakes, adjusting course, pretending we're more confident than we feel.

The people who seem to have it figured out? Maybe they're just better at moving forward. They've made peace with uncertainty instead of waiting for clarity that may never come. They know that perfect information is a myth and perfect timing is procrastination in disguise.

What if not knowing is a kind of freedom? Freedom to experiment, to change direction, to become someone you hadn't planned on being. What if admitting you don't know what you're doing is the first step to figuring it out?

You don't always need to know what you're doing. You just need to know what feels right next. One decision, one conversation, one small step toward what matters to you. The path reveals itself as you walk it, not before.

Everyone else is figuring it out as they go too. They're just not telling you.

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