The Outcome Is Not the Real Problem
The central fear behind a lot of the decisions we struggle to make is this:
We think we want to know the outcome because we’re afraid of making the wrong choice.
Will this work?
Will I regret it?
Will I be better off?
What will it cost me?
What if I’m wrong?
They’re reasonable questions. Especially when you’ve reached a point in life where your decisions aren’t being made in a vacuum.
There may be a mortgage involved, a family, a career you’ve spent decades building, a reputation, savings or retirement plans. There may be people who depend on you and a lifestyle you’ve worked hard to create.
Those are tangibles.
So when we’re considering doing something that might disrupt some of those things, of course we want to know what happens next.
The problem is, we can’t.
We can make educated guesses, study the possibilities, calculate the risks and look at what happened to other people. But none of that allows us to know what will happen to us.
Maybe our desire to know the outcome isn’t only about making the right choice. Maybe it’s also about maintaining control.
Because if you know what happens next, you can prepare for it. If you know something is going to work, you can move forward confidently. If you know it isn’t going to work, you can avoid it.
Either way, you remain in control.
But what happens when you don’t know?
And what if the need to know is one of the things keeping you from moving toward the life you keep saying you want?
We Want a Different Life. We Also Want Control.
I don’t think control deserves the bad reputation it sometimes gets.
We hear a lot about letting go of control. Stop trying to control everything. Surrender and allow life to happen.
There’s some truth in that. But there’s another side to it.
Control has probably helped a lot of us get where we are.
Most of us have spent years learning how to manage our lives. We plan ahead, save what we can, research important decisions and try to anticipate problems before they become problems. We learn from mistakes, develop backup plans and try to protect the people who depend on us.
That’s not necessarily fear.
A lot of the time, that’s responsibility.
I’ve been there.
For me, part of being a good producer was anticipating problems before they became problems. Planning, logistics, timing, backup plans and knowing what could go wrong were professional strengths. I learned to control what was within my purview and influence outcomes where I could.
The point isn’t that television taught me to control everything. It’s that preparation and my ability to influence outcomes were paramount.
Control has served me pretty well.
Experience teaches us that preparation matters. Do something long enough and you begin recognizing patterns. You learn where the trouble spots are, which questions to ask and when something doesn’t feel right.
Competence gives us a certain amount of control.
But sometimes the very thing that helped us build the life we have can make it difficult to move toward the life we say we want.
Maybe you’ve been thinking about changing careers, starting something of your own or moving somewhere else. Maybe you want to change the way you work or make more room for something that matters now in a way it didn’t ten years ago.
Maybe the change isn’t that dramatic.
Maybe you simply know you don’t want the next ten years to look exactly like the last ten.
You can see pieces of the life you want. You may even be able to describe it.
But there’s often an unspoken condition attached.
I’d like to know how it turns out first.
That’s where things get interesting.
Because we can say we want change while continuing to choose what is predictable. Not necessarily because what we have is wonderful, but because we know how to operate there.
There’s a certain security in knowing the rules, knowing what you’re good at and knowing what people expect from you. When something goes wrong, you’ve probably seen some version of it before. You know how to respond. You know who you are in that environment.
There’s control in that.
Something new asks us to give some of that up.
Not responsibility. Not preparation. Not good judgment.
But the expectation that if we do everything right, we should be able to control what happens next.
Control helps us manage our lives. The problem begins when we expect control to guarantee our lives.
And maybe that’s the tension we don’t talk about enough.
The life we have may reward our ability to maintain control. The life we say we want may require us to surrender some of it.
We want change without surrendering control of the outcome.
Life doesn’t seem particularly interested in offering us that arrangement.
And even when we imagine the outcome we want, we’ve probably already decided what a successful version of it should look like.
But I’ve been questioning that too.
What if the life you say you want doesn’t look successful by the standards you’ve been using?
What If You Knew You Could Fail?
There’s a question that’s been floating around the personal development world in one form or another for years:
If money were no object and you knew you wouldn’t fail, what would you be doing right now?
It’s a good question.
I’ve probably asked some version of it myself.
There’s a reason it can be so revealing. For a moment, it allows us to imagine what we want without having to deal with everything that makes wanting it complicated.
But look at what we’ve had to remove before we answer.
We’ve taken away the financial consequences. We’ve eliminated failure. We’ve removed much of the risk and uncertainty.
We’ve created a world where it’s safe to want something.
No wonder we’re willing to dream bigger there.
But money is an object.
And failure is possible.
That’s not pessimism. That’s life.
So maybe there’s another question worth asking.
What happens to what you want when you know that you could fail?
Does it become less important? Or do we begin negotiating with ourselves about when we’re finally going to pursue it?
Maybe later, when we have more money. Maybe when things settle down or the timing gets better. Maybe when we’ve learned a little more.
Some of those reasons may be completely legitimate.
That’s important.
I don’t believe every hesitation is fear. Sometimes waiting is wisdom. Sometimes we need more information, the numbers really don’t work or the timing really is wrong.
There’s a difference between taking a thoughtful risk and pretending consequences don’t exist.
I’ve seen this with clients time and time again. Hell, I’ve seen it with myself.
I often hear clients tell me exactly what they want, what they want their lives to look like and how they want to move forward. And then almost immediately they challenge it with
“But what if...?”
Then comes some version of: I have to do X before I’m ready to do Y. I need more information before I can take the next step. I’m not sure if that’s being responsible.
I asked myself all those questions before my big move.
Those questions kept me stagnant for nearly a year.
The more interesting question for me is what happens after we’ve done the responsible things.
We’ve researched and planned. We’ve looked at the numbers, talked with people we trust, considered what could go wrong and created whatever cushion we reasonably can.
And we still don’t know the outcome.
Eventually preparation reaches a boundary.
You can research starting a business without knowing whether people will buy what you’re offering. You can prepare financially for retirement without knowing what no longer having a career will mean to your identity.
At some point, the information runs out.
You can improve your odds. You cannot obtain evidence from a future that hasn’t happened yet.
That’s frustrating for those of us who believe preparation should produce answers.
Preparation matters. It helps us make better decisions, understand the risk and avoid consequential choices based entirely on emotion or impulse.
But it can’t give us the ending.
Preparation can help us manage an outcome. It cannot let us know the outcome.
So what happens when we’ve done everything reasonably within our control and still don’t know?
Maybe that’s where the real problem begins.
Because eventually the question gets closer to one I’ve wrestled with before: What if I bet on myself and fail?
The Vulnerability of Not Knowing
Maybe part of what makes not knowing so uncomfortable is that it leaves us exposed.
We could be wrong.
We could be disappointed or discover that the thing we wanted isn’t what we imagined it would be. Other people might watch us try something that doesn’t work. We might discover we’re not nearly as good at the new thing as we were at the old one.
We may have to change course.
And perhaps most uncomfortable of all, we may have to accept that wanting something doesn’t mean we’re going to get it.
There’s a word for some of that exposure that I don’t think we usually associate with making choices.
Vulnerability.
When most of us hear that word, we probably think about emotional exposure. Letting someone know how we really feel, admitting we’re afraid or trusting someone enough to see something we’d rather keep protected.
That’s certainly vulnerability.
Much of what we read and hear about vulnerability focuses on those experiences.
But there’s another definition sitting underneath it.
Researcher Brené Brown has described vulnerability in terms of uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. She’s also connected vulnerability with being willing to show up when we cannot control the outcome.
That caught my attention.
Because it expands the conversation beyond what we reveal to other people.
What if vulnerability isn’t only about letting someone see you? What if it’s also about moving forward when you can’t see the outcome?
That changes the way I think about not knowing.
Maybe wanting to know isn’t always about needing more information.
Sometimes knowing would protect us.
If I knew something would work, I wouldn’t have to expose myself to the disappointment of watching it fail. If I knew the new thing would be better, I could leave the old thing without wondering whether I had made a mistake.
Knowing would allow me to move while remaining protected.
Not knowing takes some of that protection away.
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I’m experiencing that right now.
I’m building something new from the ground up, and I have no idea how any of this turns out.
My 20+ year television career ended in a way I didn’t control. What came next was mine to decide.
Now I’m taking the skills I spent decades developing and using them in different ways. I’m building a solo practice. I’m continuing to evolve my coaching work. I’ve created My Life: Unplugged, a project that is forcing me to learn new skills while using some very familiar ones.
And I’m doing all of it from a new city in a new state that I’m still learning.
There is fear and there is trepidation. But there is also peace and an internal knowing that I will certainly fail if I don’t try.
I understand that vulnerability differently now because I’m living some of it.
I’ve spent much of my professional life in environments where part of my value came from anticipating what might happen next.
Now I’m building things where I can’t know what happens next.
I can prepare and make thoughtful decisions. I can bring everything I’ve learned over more than two decades of producing, leading and telling stories to what I’m doing now. I can listen, adjust and do the work.
But there is one thing I cannot do.
I cannot tell you how all of this turns out.
I’m not sure I would have been comfortable writing that sentence at another point in my life.
Maybe because we’re taught that confidence sounds like knowing.
You have a vision. You have a plan. You know where you’re going.
I do have a vision and I do have plans. I do know what I’m trying to build.
But none of those things gives me control over the ending.
That’s different from lacking confidence. It’s different from being unprepared. And it’s different from expecting failure.
It’s simply acknowledging that I can control what I put into what I’m building without controlling everything that comes back.
Final Thought: The Outcome Is Not the Real Problem
We started with a question:
What if I make the wrong choice?
I don’t think we should dismiss it.
Choices matter. Consequences are real. And part of becoming wiser should be learning how to make better decisions, not convincing ourselves that every decision will somehow work out because we were brave enough to make it.
Sometimes things don’t work out.
We miscalculate. Circumstances change. Sometimes we make a good decision and get an outcome we didn’t want. Other times, things work out in ways we never could have planned.
Maybe that’s why judging a decision only by its outcome can be misleading.
The outcome contains variables we never controlled.
Our responsibility is to make the best choice we can with what we know, what we value and what we’re willing to risk.
Then life takes over.
That’s uncomfortable.
Because sometimes what we’re searching for isn’t another piece of information.
It’s protection.
We want to know we’ll be okay before exposing ourselves to the possibility that things may not turn out the way we want.
Which takes me back to that familiar question.
If money were no object and you knew you wouldn’t fail, what would you be doing right now?
Maybe that’s still worth answering. It might tell you something important about what you want.
But I think there’s a second question waiting behind it.
What happens to what you say you want when money matters, failure is possible and you can’t know how the story ends?
I don’t think the answer automatically means you should do it.
Maybe you shouldn’t.
Maybe the risk is too high or the timing is wrong. Maybe after looking at everything clearly, you decide that what you already have is actually what you want.
That’s an answer too.
But if the only thing standing between you and the life you keep saying you want is knowing how it turns out first, you may be waiting for information life cannot give you.
Maybe the outcome isn’t the real problem.
Maybe it’s what not knowing asks us to risk before we get there.
You Don't Need to Have the Answer Yet
Sometimes the value of a conversation isn't having someone tell you what to do. It's having the space to examine what you want, what matters now and what's making the decision difficult.
That's what a PR4LIFE Strategy Session is designed to do.
TL;DR
We often want to know how a decision will turn out before we make it. We research, plan and try to reduce the risk. That's responsible. But eventually preparation reaches its limit.
At some point, the question isn't whether we've done enough to prepare. It's whether we're willing to move forward without being able to control what happens next.
Maybe that's what makes not knowing so uncomfortable. It doesn't just leave the outcome uncertain. It leaves us exposed.
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