The 'WTF' next thing and how to harness it to good effect

Or what to do when you need to make a decision about something in life

For the last few months I’ve been at what can only be described as a crossroads. Not a nice crossroads with a swanky coffee place, and a recycled cup of matcha latte (is it actually nice though?), a few friends, not a life-threateningly-scary one either like midnight, standing on deserted train tracks, a bridge over churning water, with an owl hooting in the background. But a distinctly uncomfortable one nonetheless.

Any change requires some of this crossroads discomfort

The thing is that change requires this crossroads energy. It’s one of the reasons so many of us tend to stick with what we know, and steer away from new things. Change is uncomfortable. If you suffer with the ole monkey mind then it tends to amplify that incessant mental jibber jabber, so you feel like your brain is rattling around with hundreds of unanswerable questions.

Questions like:

• If I do X with Y happen?

• How will I feel if I do Z instead?

• Will Y ever happen?

• What in fact is Y?

• WTF is actually going on right now?

My work life for many years was predictable. It was like Mad Men but without the hot men (sorry that’s deeply sexist -apologies- let me just say that nobody was quite in Jon Hamm’s league). I worked for a large qual agency. The hierarchy was clear. The top foxes sat at the top of the fox tree, and had the loudest voices. There were some smaller cubs who were also listened to but they were predominately privately educated (I have learnt that this is where my fear of not being clever enough has stemmed from- my lack of private education and love of lower brow culture).

You stayed in your lane, and had to be political in building alliances. If you wanted to be taken seriously then you quoted some French philosopher bum face malarky, and tried to keep up with the Oxbridge references. You pretended that you didn’t read Heat magazine or queue outside ‘Top Shop,’ whenever Kate Moss launched a new collection of skimpy clothes. The politics of the office weren’t particularly my strength, and so it took me longer to climb the greasy pole to the top, and when I got there I found that I didn’t particularly like it. I have written about this at length before, and I’d argue that my avoidance of the crossroads had cost me my freedom. I didn’t like the fear and so to avoid it I stuck with the knowable. Each time I got the uncomfortable feeling, I squished it into my pocket and willed it away.

What followed eight years ago, would be what can only be considered as what happens when you take one of those snow storm ornaments, and not only shake it up and down, but also smash the thing to pieces so all the glittery snow bits are on the floor, and you spend months getting them stuck on the soles of your feet.

I took voluntary redundancy, and discombobulation became my middle (and hard to pronounce) middle name.

This was a particularly violent crossroads - not the deserted train tracks or the cafe with matcha analogy, but somewhere where the skeleton Death figure from ‘Game of Thrones,’ would possibly feel comfy, eating human fingers, and decorating his tent with peoples heads on giant poles. I felt like I was doing everything for the first time (the parenting, the identity, the work, the life), and was awaiting some kind of magnificent epiphany.

The God of work did that very thing eventually.

THOU SHALT NOW BE A FAMOUS AUTHOR it said. And that sort of happened (let’s amend it to ‘published author of some renown in certain, small circles,’) and I freelanced, and learnt new things, and the crossroads was behind me for a while. I thought thank God. I have my path. I am no longer in that crossroads, what’s next, what road thing anymore. I am the creative person that I always wanted to be.

Now after 2 years in startups, and what I can only describe as a series of small deaths (not literal but figurative), I am back at this crossroads again. I feel the monkey mind turned up a notch (more than the usual because it never truly goes away). I can’t figure out the my next move. Do I pretend I went to Oxford? (No that is no longer necessary hopefully as we now appreciate that diversity is a good thing). I have the skills. I have a great CV, with a lot of experience in there. I have the energy (on good days). I am addicted to being productive which is a jolly good asset I’d argue. The problem is…what is the right move? If I do Y will X happen or vice versa?

And if you’re someone in the same sort of place (and let’s face it - many of us are- whether we’re in our forties or fifties, coming back after maternity leave, re-thinking work after all the stuff that’s happened etc.), then here’s my only piece of advice:

There is no right way. It is just about doing something. Then doing something else.

It is about not thinking in such an absolutist way that the Death man and his tent with human fingers, scares the bejesus out of you. It’s about re-considering the idea of ‘what is right for me?’ and changing it to - ‘what is right for NOW?’

It is about - and this is a biggie- enjoying the crossroads because something fresh is on the way and the uncertainty of that is quite exciting.

Change is never permanent (unless you get a tattoo and if you do then don’t go in on a whim and do it like I did and then have to live with the consequences because it’s too big to get laser treatment). Life isn’t as tidy as X delivers Y. We cannot see the road so far ahead that we can judge what will work in 18 months or two years or even a month or two. I have learnt that often X delivers P & Q & even some S instead (this isn’t a clever acronym though the S does kind of stand for shitstorm).

This is also about embracing that much lauded term - the growth mindset. This is different from ‘making the best of it' but is more about thinking what can you glean from this new next move which is good?

And if it’s bad then what can you glean from it which is good too?

So if you’re in this crossroads right now just make the next move. And don’t expect the epiphany to come. Don’t overthink it. Move and await the next crossroads to come. And everyone who has ever made a decision before will tell you. It is the bit right before that is the most challenging. Or something like that. Maybe.