A Difficult Decision
A year ago, in May of 2024, I left my stable, well-paid corporate job as an accountant, one which I enjoyed and where I had the opportunity to work with some incredible people. Many of whom I still see today.
I had a clear path ahead - promotions, predictability, security.
But I also had a growing coaching business I’d been building on the side of my job, since earning my coaching qualification the year before in the Summer of 2023.
Then came an incredible opportunity to become a full-time executive coach. It was exciting and everything that I dreamed of. But what lay ahead down that path was uncertain, unclear. I knew in choosing that path, that I’d be walking away from financial stability. My wife and I understood it would require short-term sacrifices. It would be uncomfortable. It has been.
And yet, this past year has been the best - and at the same time one of the most challenging - years of my life.
As I write to you and reflect back now, I think back to that moment of taking the decision. I was stepping into the unknown. I, as we all humans do, crave certainty, but I intentionally chose a path of great uncertainty.
At the time, my mind was spiralling through all the things that could go wrong. What if I failed? What if we ran out of money? What if I wasn’t good enough?
When I was in that vulnerable space, someone recommended a book to me: The Upside of Uncertainty. In its pages and in a conversation with someone whom I admire an incredible amount, I found solace and strength. This person presented me with a powerful idea, one which was reinforced in me as I read the book.
It was that uncertainty isn’t something to fear, but a source of opportunity and possibility. As Nathan and Susannah Harmon Furr write:
“The lack of certainty is what makes it worthwhile … the thing you are trying to avoid is what makes it worth it in the first place.”
That self-doubt I was experiencing? I was reminded too, that it is normal for those thoughts to arise in moments of uncertainty and that self-doubt is just a natural part of the human condition - a primal response to the unknown, and not a measure of my actual ability. In the unforgiving, dangerous world of our hunter gatherer ancestors, that drive for certainty and stability was essential for their survival.
It is that same evolutionary drive within me which was creating those thoughts of fear, worry and self-doubt. I had a choice at that moment. A choice to either listen to those thoughts, to allow them to consume me and hold me back. Or, to step boldly into the unknown and to take the difficult decision which I knew in my heart to be the right one.
“Fear and self-doubt have always been the greatest enemies of human potential.”
Brian Tracy.
Something I’m learning on my journey is that I, and we both, can be guilty of resisting life or trying to force outcomes. Of clinging too tightly to what we think should happen. But I’m learning to loosen my grip.
This doesn’t mean inaction. I don’t spend Monday to Friday in my dressing gown, on the sofa with my feet up, cup of tea and Hobnob biscuit in hand. No, it means taking inspired action without being attached to the outcome. We take the next best step, and then remain open to what unfolds.
That idea - the next best step - has become a guiding principle for me. When we’re stuck in worry, it’s usually because we’re trying to map out the whole journey. But we don’t need to. We just need to follow the breadcrumbs and, in the words of Carl Jung, “do the next most necessary thing.” Because, as the Sufi poet Rumi writes: “as you start to walk on the way, the way appears.”
Still, I get it, I experience it too, the worrying mind can be loud. It creates imagined futures, then fears them as if they’re real. I refer you here to a quote from the American writer Jodi Picoult, initially to refer to anxiety but where I have replaced “anxiety” with “worry”: “Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you very far.”
As Michel de Montaigne writes on this same theme, his words bringing a smile to my face: “my life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened”.
In the face of that worry, I reframed. Not: what might I lose? But: what might I gain? The lack of certainty was what made the decision the right one. Greater risk, greater reward.
People sometimes ask me, “How, when I am in those moments of my life where I am at a crossroads, do I know if I’m making the right decision? Where one path is certain but uninspiring, and the other is uncertain but potentially so much more fulfilling?”
Since converting to Islam to marry my wife, Majd, I’ve been exploring the wisdom within Islamic tradition. I came across this Hadith recently: “Actions are judged by intentions.” When I chose to leave my job, I was asking myself, is this the right decision? Am I being selfish in putting my wife under financial pressure?”
But then I look at my intention. I left because I believe coaching is how I can be of most value in this world. That was my intention. And I believe it to be one of my better ones.
If your actions are rooted in pure, meaningful intentions - and if they align with your values - then I believe you're on the right path. That you are making the right decisions.
So, what did I do at that time in those moments of fear and self-doubt, amidst the uncertainty? I went to my journal. Every morning, I sat in stillness. I got those thoughts of fear and self-doubt, and put them onto paper. I then challenged them. I challenged myself too, to step out of that scarcity mindset and into that abundance mindset. To shift from fear or loss, to anticipation of gain.
I also looked at my coaster which I still to this day rest my coffee on as I journal each morning (a ritual I’ve continued since). A coaster which Majd bought for me when I was thinking about leaving my corporate job and becoming a full-time coach. A coaster which reads: “What’s the best that could happen?”
What is my message here? It is that there will be inevitable moments on your journey when you’ll be asked to choose. One path will be safe, clear, and familiar. One will provide that immediate certainty, stability and clarity which our primal instincts crave, but will ultimately keep you small, limit your potential expansion and, if taken, leave you looking back on life with thoughts of “what could have been.”
The other, it will scare you a little bit, it will necessitate a shorter-term period of discomfort and uncertainty, it will be challenging but, if chosen, will ultimately bring incredible expansion and reward.
And so, we should not fear uncertainty, but embrace it, welcome it, and step into it. Boldly.