This week we’ve been trying to decide if we found the “right” house to buy. Ugh. There’s always angst around things that can’t be completely knowable in this moment. My husband is struggling because while I feel like it’s a great house and am ready to make an offer, he’s nervous that we’re at the beginning of the season for houses to come on the market and a bunch of good ones might show up as soon as we sign on the dotted line (even thought we really like it and it checks a lot of boxes). Will that mean we made the wrong choice?
Maybe.
But what if there is no absolute “right” choice…in the best of ways?
Many people hire me when they are feeling caught between many good ideas and feel pressure that they have to choose the “right” one…in their business, in their life, in their relationship… or maybe what business niche to choose, what social to focus on, what podcast to pitch, what rate to charge…it’s stressful just to think about!
This gives the idea that there is a right and a wrong way. No middle ground. Either something is 100% right or it’s wrong.
But if we stop and think about it, this isn’t really how life usually works – Examples:
Remember that party you decided to go in college that turned out to be lame (wrong choice)? But then you met your wife at a diner you stopped at with friends on the way home (so now it was the right choice)?
Remember how you decided to go to a new restaurant, but you didn’t make reservations so when you got there you were turned away hungry (wrong choice?) but then you discovered a beautiful park across the street and had the best evening letting your kids play and getting a pizza delivered to the park (right choice)?
These examples are a reminder it’s almost never all one thing.
And I’m not talking about the “blessing” of facing difficulties or looking for a silver lining in event that suck. Things sometimes legit suck in life.
What I’m talking about is the fact that most experiences are not 100% one thing.
This is pretty amazing because it means we can stop thinking that if something isn’t 100% right, that somehow you failed. You didn’t! It’s just the normal mix of life!
It also means we get the chance to course correct based on the % that is right.
Start a job and realize you don’t like 75% of it? What’s in that 25% that’s right? How do you expand on that? How do we change that to 35%, 45%, 55%…?
It’s all pointing us in the direction to go, following the % that does feel right.
You have experience, resilience, and you’ve built things. You can trust yourself to recognize and follow that % that’s right.
Every choice isn’t about making the right one, it’s about choosing based on what you know and then course-correcting when you know more. Every % that’s “wrong” tells us something that lets us get more right.
You are doing enough. ????
XOX,
Raina
