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Have you ever bought something you were absolutely sure you wanted, and then almost immediately regretted it?
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Maybe it was a car.
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You read the reviews, compared a few models, drove it.
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You were sure.
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Then you bought it.
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And three days later you start to hear a noise.
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Was that there before?
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The seat suddenly doesn't feel as comfortable as it did when you test drove it.
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You start reading reviews again, and now you may find yourself looking for everything you missed the first time.
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Or maybe it was a house.
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You walked through it and loved the kitchen.
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You pictured yourself sitting on the porch, you imagined where the furniture would go.
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Then you moved in and discovered that the water pressure wasn't good.
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One room was always too hot, and apparently every appliance in the house has decided to fail at the same time.
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Some of that is just reality replacing imagination.
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Some of it is buyer's remorse.
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And sometimes there really is a problem.
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That's what I want to talk about today.
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What happens after we choose?
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What happens when the thing we chose isn't exactly what we imagined?
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And what if it's bigger than buyer's remorse?
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What if the career, the relationship, or the life you chose really isn't working anymore?
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How do we live with uncertainty after the decision?
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And what do we do when we start wondering if it's time to make a new choice?
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I'm Jason Lewellan and this is Chaotic Peace, finding peace in the process.
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Before we make a decision, we're comparing possibilities, and possibilities have an unfair advantage.
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They haven't had to encounter reality yet.
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See the job I'm considering doesn't have an annoying coworker.
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I haven't met them yet.
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The relationship I'm hoping for hasn't had an argument about money or family or who forgot to do something.
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We're comparing imagined futures.
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Then we choose one, and suddenly that choice becomes reality.
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It gets complicated.
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It has flaws.
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It cost more than we expected and asks things of us that we didn't anticipate.
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Meanwhile, the path we didn't choose gets to stay imaginary.
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We start comparing the imperfections of the life we're actually living to a life that only exists in our imaginations, and our minds are very good at doing that.
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Sometimes there's an uncomfortable mismatch between what we believe and what I'm experiencing.
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We call that cognitive dissonance.
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It's how we reconcile conflicting values or new information that doesn't fit in with our old beliefs.
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For example, I think I'm a thoughtful person who makes good decisions.
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But now I'm seeing things that make me question this decision.
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I don't like that.
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So I may start defending the choice and minimize the problems because I didn't want to admit that I'm wrong, or I might start attacking it and suddenly notice every flaw and just burn it to the ground.
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The discomfort is real, but the urge to feel better can get in the way of seeing the choice clearly.
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Sometimes the job is just a job instead of the perfect opportunity we imagine.
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Sometimes the job really is toxic.
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How do we tell?
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I wish I had an easy answer for that.
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When I first enrolled in college, my plan was to be an engineering major.
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Now that probably sounds a little strange if you know me primarily as a therapist or know that I practiced law for years.
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But it actually makes sense to me.
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When I was a kid, I wanted to know how things worked.
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I took toys apart to see how the pieces fit together, and I was usually pretty good at putting them all back together again.
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Engineering seemed like a natural fit.
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Then I met Calculus.
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Calculus kicked my butt twice.
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Eventually I took a psychology course and immediately changed my major.
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Looking back, I don't think the curiosity changed very much.
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I still wanted to understand how things worked.
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I just chose a much more complicated machine.
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People.
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So my educational path ended up looking something like this engineering, briefly, psychology, then law, and eventually back around to counseling and psychology.
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You could look at that and see major changes in direction.
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I look at it and see continuity.
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Each choice added something.
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Psychology didn't disappear when I went to law school.
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Law didn't disappear when I became a therapist.
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I carried those experiences forward.
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But before we get there, I want to talk about a time when changing directions was much harder for me.
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Now, I'll be honest, I really don't want to talk about this.
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There are parts of this period of my life that I still don't like thinking about.
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But unfortunately, it fits the conversation a little too well to avoid it.
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In 2003, I was living in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
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I had a law practice there.
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Our daughter was about two years old, and most of our family was on the other side of the state around the Jonesboro area.
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My wife and I started talking about moving home.
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The plan was to start a law practice in my hometown.
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I started working through the details of with my existing practice, began laying out the foundations for the new one.
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I was marketing, I was planning.
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We thought we'd move somewhere around January of 2004.
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That summer we put our house up for sale by owner, literally just stuck a sign in the front yard.
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We assumed it would take a while to sell.
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It didn't.
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We had an offer for the asking price within about a week of putting the sign out, and suddenly the timeline changed.
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It didn't make much sense to rent something in Fayeville for several months so we could just stick around for the original January plan, so we decided to go ahead and make the move.
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I'll be honest and say we were seeing all of this as confirmation that this was the right decision.
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It was falling together like it was supposed to.
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We found a house in Jonesboro, closed on it in August of 2003, and at first things looked pretty promising.
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I was marketing the practice, clients were showing up for a while, then it kind of plateaued a little.
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And then it slowed down.
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There were things I had counted on as income from the old practice that just didn't quite work out like I expected them to.
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I wasn't able to keep everything going the way I had planned.
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Eventually I moved my practice into my house and worked from home for a while.
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Wife had to go back to work earlier than she had wanted to, and I started to spiral into depression.
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I felt like I had failed.
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Actually, it went further than that.
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I had created this plan.
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I had moved my family.
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I had believed that I could make it all work.
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So if it wasn't working, I had messed it up.
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And if I had messed it up, then I needed to figure out a way to fix it.
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I kept trying to come up with another plan and another and another.
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And I couldn't come up with a way to just make it work.
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Now, for the guy who can always come up with a solution, facing a situation I couldn't see my way through, I was devastating.
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Most of my creativity was still trapped inside of the original idea.
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I had to make this practice work.
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I wasn't really asking what choices do I have now.
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I kept asking how do I fix what I broke?
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That's a much smaller question.
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And because I had tied the outcome to my own sense of competence, walking away from the plan felt a lot like admitting I wasn't who I thought I was.
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I still think of 2004 as my year of hell.
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I'm not gonna dress that up for the podcast.
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I can tell you what I learned from it.
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I can tell you how it changed me.
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I can even tell you the things I carry from that year even now.
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That doesn't require me to be glad it happened.
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Eventually something shifted.
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A part of me woke up.
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I started looking outside of the original plan and I remembered that I was not the practice.
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I had skills and experiences that could be valuable somewhere else.
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And once I stopped requiring the solution to look like the original plan, I got creative again.
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I approached a local law firm, they didn't even have an opening advertised, I found a way to show them where I could bring some value, and I created an opportunity that hadn't been sitting there waiting for me.
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I went to work for that firm and started getting back on my feet.
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Looking back on it, I think it's interesting that letting go of the original plan didn't limit my choices.
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It actually gave me a lot more.
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I still wish it hadn't taken me so long to get there though.
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One thing I took away from that experience was learning how to give myself permission to question my own decisions.
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I don't have to stay locked into a plan because I made it.
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And I don't have to feel like I'm somehow being disloyal to what I've already committed to.
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I think that's been good for me.
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It's helped me avoid feeling trapped when life isn't going the way I expected it.
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But I wonder about the other side of that too.
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If I'm always willing to reconsider a decision, does that sometimes make it harder to fully commit to it?
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I don't know, that's something I'm still thinking about.
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But what about the decisions we're making right now?
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Or the ones we haven't even gotten to yet?
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How do we do it right when we're in the middle of it?
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This is where the questions get difficult.
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Okay, where they get more difficult.
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How do you know when to stay and keep trying?
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And how do you know when it's time to make a change?
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I wish I could tell you there's some clear way to know.
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Like five signs it's time to leave your marriage or three reasons you should quit your job.
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Wouldn't that make life easier?
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I wish it worked that way.
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But it doesn't.
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These are really complicated decisions.
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There are people involved, responsibilities, consequences.
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And sometimes even after you've thought through all of it, you're still not gonna know whether you're making the right choice.
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We talk a lot about having the courage to make a change.
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But what about the decision to stay?
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To keep trying when things aren't going the way we expected?
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I think we sometimes disrespect commitment when we assume that staying is always about fear.
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I know I tend to stay with things a long time, probably longer than I should sometimes.
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Part of that may be fear of what's coming next, but that's not all of it.
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There's loyalty, determination, and respect for what I have right now.
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There's respect for the people involved and a belief that something worth building may also be worth fighting for.
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Sometimes staying is courage, sometimes leaving is courage.
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Sometimes either one can be chosen because of fear.
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You kind of have to sit with it.
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The best I've ever been able to do is just sit with those decisions, weigh the options, try things, and pay attention.
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By looking at what I value and the responsibilities that belong in that decision, and by looking at the life I'm living and not the one I imagined from the beginning.
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One thing I try to notice in myself is where my creativity starts going.
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When I still believe in something, I tend to keep looking for ways to make it work.
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What else can I try?
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Is there another way to approach this?
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But sometimes I reach a point where I can't see another way to make it work, and the ideas start going somewhere else.
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My creativity begins building a different future.
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I'm not suggesting that's some kind of test for whether you should leave, but I do think it's worth noticing where your mind starts going.
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And I think it's information worth paying attention to.
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At some point the question may shift from can I make this work to something much harder.
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Do I still want to use my energy to make this work?
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And even after you answer the question, you may not feel certain.
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That uncertainty doesn't disappear just because we want it to or need it to because the stakes are high.
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In fact, the higher the stakes, the more we may wish someone could just tell us what to do.
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And there are people who can help us think through choices, friends who can see things we miss, a therapist who helps us understand what we value, what we're afraid of, and what might be influencing our choices.
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We have to consider the people we love, because our decisions can affect their lives too.
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But nobody else gets to live your life for you.
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No one can promise which path is going to be better.
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I wish I could.
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Then there's another trap in all of this.
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I've already put so much into it, years, money, a degree, maybe a whole identity.
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If I change directions now, was all of that a waste?
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See, I don't think so.
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And I want to be careful not to use that as an excuse to avoid responsibility.
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Sometimes I miss something I should have seen or overestimate what I can do.
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And sometimes I simply just get it wrong.
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I can own a mistake without making that mistake the definition of who I am.
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That was part of what I couldn't do very well back in 2004.
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I wasn't just evaluating what happened.
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I was trying to redeem myself by making the original plan succeed, and I about lost myself in the process.
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But I didn't need the old plan to succeed before I was allowed to make a new choice.
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And the years we put into something don't suddenly become worthless because we decide to do something different.
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We learn things, we built relationships, we grew from the experience.
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We don't have to keep making the same choice forever just to prove that the earlier years mattered.
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There's another version of this that I think is just as important.
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What if nothing actually failed?
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What if it still works and you just don't want it anymore?
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In 2012, I decided I didn't want to continue practicing law.
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That was a very different decision from what happened in 2004.
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This time, I wasn't questioning whether I could make a career in law work.
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I had spent years as an attorney.
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I knew how to do the work.
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The bigger question was whether I wanted to keep doing it.
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And that's where a decision can move beyond practical questions and become existential.
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If I've spent all of these years becoming this thing, and I don't want to be this thing anymore, then who am I?
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And that question isn't limited to careers.
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We can become so identified with our roles that changing them can feel like losing part of ourselves.
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But I didn't stop being me when I stopped practicing law.
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I went back to graduate school and became a therapist, and I brought the lawyer with me.
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Not the job title, but the experience, the way I thought, the things that I had learned.
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Being a therapist added to that, and so did supervising and teaching.
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I'm not the same person I was back in 2004, thank God.
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But I didn't erase that guy, I grew from him.
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And that curious kid who took toys apart just to figure out how they worked, he's still in there too.
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I see it in the way I approach people and problems.
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See, we change, we grow, we take some things with us and leave others behind.
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The road that brought you here isn't wasted at all.
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It was full of experiences that shaped you and the way you make choices today.
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I don't believe that's about fate, but context.
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Let's take a step back and play with a metaphor here.
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Think about a book.
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When you're reading a book and the story takes an unexpected turn, you don't tear out the previous chapter because the next chapter went somewhere different.
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The previous chapter makes the next one possible.
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Some chapters are great, some are painful.
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Some go on way too long, and some end before we wanted them to.
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They're still part of the story.
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And sometimes a later chapter changes what an earlier chapter means.
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The facts of two thousand four haven't changed for me, but what that year means in the larger story of my life has changed.
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For a long time I attached the word failure to it.
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Now I can see other things in it.
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I can see how tightly I had connected achievement to identity.
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I can see how persistence can become attachment.
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That doesn't make two thousand four a good year.
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It means the chapter has more meaning now than I could see while I was living it, and I think that's important.
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We don't have to believe that everything happens for a reason.
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We don't have to pretend every painful experience is secretly a gift, and we don't have to be grateful for every mistake, but everything we've lived becomes part of the person who is deciding what comes next.
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There's another part of major change that I don't think we talk enough about grief.
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We usually hear the word grief and think about death, but grief also accompanies major changes in life.
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A career ends, a marriage ends, a child leaves home.
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We leave a job and the people we cared about, and in some ways those losses can be complicated by the fact that parts of the old life may still be around.
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You may still see the former spouse because you're raising children together.
00:19:41.519 --> 00:19:48.799
You may drive past the old office, may still love parts of the career that you decided to leave.
00:19:49.200 --> 00:19:53.839
Missing something doesn't automatically mean you should go back to it.
00:19:54.079 --> 00:19:57.519
Sometimes regret isn't a request to return.
00:19:57.920 --> 00:20:01.599
Sometimes it's grief or something we wish we could have made work.
00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:09.839
We can decide that it's time to move forward and still feel a sense of loss over what we're leaving behind.
00:20:10.559 --> 00:20:18.160
There's a framework developed by psychologist William Warden called the Tasks of Mourning, and I think it's useful here.
00:20:18.640 --> 00:20:34.400
It was developed around the idea of bereavement, and I'm not suggesting that changing careers is the same as losing someone you love, but I think some of those ideas can help us understand what happens when we let go of a significant part of our lives.
00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:38.160
The first task is accepting the reality of the loss.
00:20:38.640 --> 00:20:57.200
For the kind of changes we're talking about, that might mean accepting that this past part of our life has changed, not deciding it was terrible, not rewriting the past or pretending we never wanted it, just accepting that it isn't our life in the same way anymore.
00:20:57.440 --> 00:21:12.160
The second task is allowing ourselves to experience the pain of the loss, to actually feel it, not immediately trying to turn it into a success story, not deciding that because I chose to change, I'm not allowed to be sad about it.
00:21:12.480 --> 00:21:17.119
We can choose something and still grieve what the choice cost us.
00:21:17.359 --> 00:21:21.839
The third task involves adjusting to a world changed by the loss.
00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:24.079
Those adjustments can be practical.
00:21:24.319 --> 00:21:29.519
They can be internal and social and spiritual, even existential.
00:21:29.759 --> 00:21:31.920
What does my day look like now?
00:21:32.160 --> 00:21:33.839
What changes financially?
00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:35.279
Who am I around?
00:21:35.519 --> 00:21:39.039
How do I understand myself now that this role has changed?
00:21:39.200 --> 00:21:42.400
And what do I believe about where life is going?
00:21:43.119 --> 00:21:50.559
The fourth task is about finding this enduring connection with what was lost while continuing forward with life.
00:21:50.799 --> 00:21:58.960
I love this concept because grief isn't about getting over something or forgetting it, it's about finding a way to carry it.
00:21:59.200 --> 00:21:59.599
And I think
00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:02.880
I think that fits major life transitions beautifully.
00:22:03.119 --> 00:22:06.960
Moving forward doesn't require leaving everything behind.
00:22:07.279 --> 00:22:10.160
Some things are supposed to come with us.
00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:12.079
That's continuity.
00:22:12.319 --> 00:22:15.519
The chapter ends, but the character continues.
00:22:16.400 --> 00:22:19.680
I also want to give regret some room here.
00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:29.440
We have a strange tendency to think that if we regret anything about a decision that proves the decision was wrong, I don't think life is that clean.
00:22:29.759 --> 00:22:32.880
You can leave a career and miss parts of it.
00:22:33.039 --> 00:22:35.920
You can end a relationship and still love the person.
00:22:36.160 --> 00:22:43.039
I think sometimes we want major decisions to give us this clean emotional resolution, closure.
00:22:43.359 --> 00:22:47.599
We decide, we feel peace, the clouds part.
00:22:47.759 --> 00:22:49.599
Everything makes sense again in life.
00:22:50.079 --> 00:22:51.599
Sometimes that happens.
00:22:51.839 --> 00:22:55.759
Sometimes there really is a sense of peace when we finally make a decision.
00:22:56.319 --> 00:22:58.240
And sometimes there isn't.
00:22:58.720 --> 00:23:01.680
Sometimes making a different decision hurts.
00:23:02.319 --> 00:23:05.759
Sometimes the best choice available still carries loss.
00:23:06.160 --> 00:23:12.000
And sometimes we don't know how to feel about a new path until we've actually started walking it.
00:23:12.559 --> 00:23:18.640
With all the reflection and all the careful thinking, we may still get the choice wrong.
00:23:18.880 --> 00:23:22.559
I don't say that to make decision making more frightening.
00:23:22.720 --> 00:23:28.880
I say it because I don't think we should demand something from ourselves that human beings can't do.
00:23:29.119 --> 00:23:30.799
We can't know the future.
00:23:31.039 --> 00:23:34.000
I don't know about you, but my time machine's broken.
00:23:34.160 --> 00:23:36.240
I can't go back and change the past.
00:23:36.400 --> 00:23:39.519
I can't jump ahead and see how this turns out.
00:23:39.839 --> 00:23:42.319
So I look to the tools I actually have.
00:23:42.559 --> 00:23:45.519
Reflection can help us make a thoughtful decision.
00:23:45.759 --> 00:23:48.079
It can't guarantee the outcome.
00:23:48.400 --> 00:23:52.720
That takes me back to something we've been talking about throughout these episodes.
00:23:53.039 --> 00:23:57.920
Maybe confidence isn't knowing that I'm making the right choice.
00:23:58.240 --> 00:24:06.720
Maybe confidence is trusting that I can make the best choice I know how to make with what I know today and keep responding to what I learn.
00:24:07.039 --> 00:24:09.119
If it works, keep building.
00:24:09.359 --> 00:24:11.599
If it doesn't work, learn from it.
00:24:11.920 --> 00:24:14.559
If circumstances change, respond.
00:24:14.880 --> 00:24:18.319
If I change, I need to pay attention to that too.
00:24:18.640 --> 00:24:21.680
And if I need to, I choose again.
00:24:21.920 --> 00:24:28.319
So maybe you're listening to this and thinking about something enormous a marriage, a career, a move.
00:24:28.559 --> 00:24:31.119
Maybe you're thinking about something much smaller.
00:24:31.359 --> 00:24:34.799
Maybe you're wondering if you bought the wrong car.
00:24:35.119 --> 00:24:39.920
The stakes aren't the same, but there's a common experience underneath them.
00:24:40.240 --> 00:24:42.000
I made a choice.
00:24:42.960 --> 00:24:48.000
Now reality has given me information that I didn't have when I made it.
00:24:48.559 --> 00:24:51.279
What do I do with what I know now?
00:24:51.680 --> 00:24:53.759
I can't answer that for you.
00:24:54.079 --> 00:24:57.839
I don't know whether you should stay, I don't know whether you should leave.
00:24:58.160 --> 00:25:02.319
No generic set of rules can carry the weight of those decisions.
00:25:02.640 --> 00:25:11.519
Consider what matters, what you've learned, and the life you're actually living, and give yourself permission to sit with the question.
00:25:11.839 --> 00:25:16.319
You don't have to manufacture certainty just because the decision is important.
00:25:17.440 --> 00:25:19.279
So what do I want to leave you with?
00:25:19.599 --> 00:25:22.319
What do I want you thinking about until next time?
00:25:22.640 --> 00:25:27.200
Maybe there's an old choice in your life that you're questioning right now.
00:25:27.440 --> 00:25:34.880
Instead of judging it with your twenty twenty hindsight, think about what you knew when you made the original choice.
00:25:35.200 --> 00:25:38.559
And then ask yourself what you know now.
00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:40.160
What still matters?
00:25:40.400 --> 00:25:41.519
What changed?
00:25:41.759 --> 00:25:45.119
What are you trying to preserve because you still value it?
00:25:45.440 --> 00:25:50.880
And what are you trying to preserve because you're afraid of what changing direction would mean?
00:25:51.119 --> 00:25:53.599
I can't tell you what answer you'll find.
00:25:53.920 --> 00:25:55.119
You may stay.
00:25:55.440 --> 00:25:57.279
You may choose again.
00:25:57.599 --> 00:25:59.680
You may not know yet.
00:25:59.920 --> 00:26:02.240
And I think there's room for all three.
00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:06.160
Whatever you choose, you aren't starting your life over.
00:26:06.400 --> 00:26:10.319
The plan can fail without becoming a verdict on you.
00:26:10.799 --> 00:26:15.680
You bring what you've learned with you, including the things you do differently.
00:26:15.920 --> 00:26:20.160
You're still you, still learning, still adding, still becoming.
00:26:20.400 --> 00:26:25.440
And when life asks you to make another choice, you're not choosing from the beginning.
00:26:25.680 --> 00:26:27.519
You're choosing from here.
00:26:28.480 --> 00:26:31.680
So, what are the choices you're wrestling with now?
00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:34.799
And are you struggling with what you want to do?
00:26:35.119 --> 00:26:39.359
Or if what making the choice might mean if you did?
00:00:00.640 --> 00:00:06.879
Have you ever bought something you were absolutely sure you wanted, and then almost immediately regretted it?
00:00:07.759 --> 00:00:08.880
Maybe it was a car.
00:00:09.039 --> 00:00:12.160
You read the reviews, compared a few models, drove it.
00:00:12.400 --> 00:00:13.439
You were sure.
00:00:13.679 --> 00:00:15.119
Then you bought it.
00:00:15.439 --> 00:00:18.239
And three days later you start to hear a noise.
00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:19.920
Was that there before?
00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:24.239
The seat suddenly doesn't feel as comfortable as it did when you test drove it.
00:00:24.559 --> 00:00:30.879
You start reading reviews again, and now you may find yourself looking for everything you missed the first time.
00:00:31.359 --> 00:00:32.960
Or maybe it was a house.
00:00:33.200 --> 00:00:36.159
You walked through it and loved the kitchen.
00:00:36.320 --> 00:00:41.359
You pictured yourself sitting on the porch, you imagined where the furniture would go.
00:00:41.600 --> 00:00:45.759
Then you moved in and discovered that the water pressure wasn't good.
00:00:46.079 --> 00:00:53.039
One room was always too hot, and apparently every appliance in the house has decided to fail at the same time.
00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:57.200
Some of that is just reality replacing imagination.
00:00:57.439 --> 00:00:59.520
Some of it is buyer's remorse.
00:00:59.759 --> 00:01:02.079
And sometimes there really is a problem.
00:01:02.399 --> 00:01:04.400
That's what I want to talk about today.
00:01:04.640 --> 00:01:06.640
What happens after we choose?
00:01:06.959 --> 00:01:12.000
What happens when the thing we chose isn't exactly what we imagined?
00:01:12.239 --> 00:01:15.599
And what if it's bigger than buyer's remorse?
00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:22.879
What if the career, the relationship, or the life you chose really isn't working anymore?
00:01:23.120 --> 00:01:26.959
How do we live with uncertainty after the decision?
00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:32.799
And what do we do when we start wondering if it's time to make a new choice?
00:01:34.159 --> 00:01:39.439
I'm Jason Lewellan and this is Chaotic Peace, finding peace in the process.
00:01:43.120 --> 00:01:50.480
Before we make a decision, we're comparing possibilities, and possibilities have an unfair advantage.
00:01:50.719 --> 00:01:53.519
They haven't had to encounter reality yet.
00:01:53.760 --> 00:01:58.079
See the job I'm considering doesn't have an annoying coworker.
00:01:58.319 --> 00:01:59.760
I haven't met them yet.
00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:07.040
The relationship I'm hoping for hasn't had an argument about money or family or who forgot to do something.
00:02:07.280 --> 00:02:10.080
We're comparing imagined futures.
00:02:10.319 --> 00:02:14.479
Then we choose one, and suddenly that choice becomes reality.
00:02:14.800 --> 00:02:16.159
It gets complicated.
00:02:16.319 --> 00:02:17.680
It has flaws.
00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:23.199
It cost more than we expected and asks things of us that we didn't anticipate.
00:02:23.360 --> 00:02:27.680
Meanwhile, the path we didn't choose gets to stay imaginary.
00:02:28.479 --> 00:02:39.199
We start comparing the imperfections of the life we're actually living to a life that only exists in our imaginations, and our minds are very good at doing that.
00:02:39.439 --> 00:02:45.919
Sometimes there's an uncomfortable mismatch between what we believe and what I'm experiencing.
00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:48.879
We call that cognitive dissonance.
00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:57.120
It's how we reconcile conflicting values or new information that doesn't fit in with our old beliefs.
00:02:57.360 --> 00:03:01.919
For example, I think I'm a thoughtful person who makes good decisions.
00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:06.560
But now I'm seeing things that make me question this decision.
00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:08.159
I don't like that.
00:03:08.479 --> 00:03:21.039
So I may start defending the choice and minimize the problems because I didn't want to admit that I'm wrong, or I might start attacking it and suddenly notice every flaw and just burn it to the ground.
00:03:21.199 --> 00:03:28.080
The discomfort is real, but the urge to feel better can get in the way of seeing the choice clearly.
00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:34.080
Sometimes the job is just a job instead of the perfect opportunity we imagine.
00:03:34.319 --> 00:03:37.039
Sometimes the job really is toxic.
00:03:37.280 --> 00:03:38.319
How do we tell?
00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:40.800
I wish I had an easy answer for that.
00:03:41.120 --> 00:03:45.439
When I first enrolled in college, my plan was to be an engineering major.
00:03:45.599 --> 00:03:52.000
Now that probably sounds a little strange if you know me primarily as a therapist or know that I practiced law for years.
00:03:52.319 --> 00:03:54.240
But it actually makes sense to me.
00:03:54.479 --> 00:03:57.680
When I was a kid, I wanted to know how things worked.
00:03:57.840 --> 00:04:04.560
I took toys apart to see how the pieces fit together, and I was usually pretty good at putting them all back together again.
00:04:04.879 --> 00:04:07.360
Engineering seemed like a natural fit.
00:04:07.599 --> 00:04:09.599
Then I met Calculus.
00:04:09.919 --> 00:04:13.120
Calculus kicked my butt twice.
00:04:13.919 --> 00:04:18.800
Eventually I took a psychology course and immediately changed my major.
00:04:19.040 --> 00:04:22.800
Looking back, I don't think the curiosity changed very much.
00:04:23.279 --> 00:04:26.000
I still wanted to understand how things worked.
00:04:26.240 --> 00:04:29.279
I just chose a much more complicated machine.
00:04:29.600 --> 00:04:30.240
People.
00:04:30.720 --> 00:04:43.199
So my educational path ended up looking something like this engineering, briefly, psychology, then law, and eventually back around to counseling and psychology.
00:04:43.519 --> 00:04:46.720
You could look at that and see major changes in direction.
00:04:47.040 --> 00:04:49.680
I look at it and see continuity.
00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:52.480
Each choice added something.
00:04:52.720 --> 00:04:55.839
Psychology didn't disappear when I went to law school.
00:04:56.160 --> 00:04:58.959
Law didn't disappear when I became a therapist.
00:04:59.120 --> 00:05:01.439
I carried those experiences forward.
00:05:01.680 --> 00:05:08.879
But before we get there, I want to talk about a time when changing directions was much harder for me.
00:05:09.120 --> 00:05:12.720
Now, I'll be honest, I really don't want to talk about this.
00:05:12.959 --> 00:05:16.959
There are parts of this period of my life that I still don't like thinking about.
00:05:17.199 --> 00:05:22.000
But unfortunately, it fits the conversation a little too well to avoid it.
00:05:22.959 --> 00:05:26.160
In 2003, I was living in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
00:05:26.399 --> 00:05:28.240
I had a law practice there.
00:05:28.560 --> 00:05:35.680
Our daughter was about two years old, and most of our family was on the other side of the state around the Jonesboro area.
00:05:35.920 --> 00:05:38.959
My wife and I started talking about moving home.
00:05:39.199 --> 00:05:42.879
The plan was to start a law practice in my hometown.
00:05:43.040 --> 00:05:50.240
I started working through the details of with my existing practice, began laying out the foundations for the new one.
00:05:50.399 --> 00:05:52.720
I was marketing, I was planning.
00:05:53.120 --> 00:05:57.120
We thought we'd move somewhere around January of 2004.
00:05:57.680 --> 00:06:04.000
That summer we put our house up for sale by owner, literally just stuck a sign in the front yard.
00:06:04.240 --> 00:06:06.560
We assumed it would take a while to sell.
00:06:06.879 --> 00:06:07.759
It didn't.
00:06:08.079 --> 00:06:14.959
We had an offer for the asking price within about a week of putting the sign out, and suddenly the timeline changed.
00:06:15.279 --> 00:06:26.160
It didn't make much sense to rent something in Fayeville for several months so we could just stick around for the original January plan, so we decided to go ahead and make the move.
00:06:26.399 --> 00:06:32.800
I'll be honest and say we were seeing all of this as confirmation that this was the right decision.
00:06:33.040 --> 00:06:35.759
It was falling together like it was supposed to.
00:06:35.920 --> 00:06:43.920
We found a house in Jonesboro, closed on it in August of 2003, and at first things looked pretty promising.
00:06:44.160 --> 00:06:52.160
I was marketing the practice, clients were showing up for a while, then it kind of plateaued a little.
00:06:52.800 --> 00:06:54.879
And then it slowed down.
00:06:56.079 --> 00:07:02.639
There were things I had counted on as income from the old practice that just didn't quite work out like I expected them to.
00:07:02.879 --> 00:07:06.480
I wasn't able to keep everything going the way I had planned.
00:07:06.720 --> 00:07:12.639
Eventually I moved my practice into my house and worked from home for a while.
00:07:13.279 --> 00:07:21.040
Wife had to go back to work earlier than she had wanted to, and I started to spiral into depression.
00:07:22.480 --> 00:07:24.399
I felt like I had failed.
00:07:25.120 --> 00:07:27.519
Actually, it went further than that.
00:07:27.759 --> 00:07:29.600
I had created this plan.
00:07:29.839 --> 00:07:31.680
I had moved my family.
00:07:31.920 --> 00:07:34.959
I had believed that I could make it all work.
00:07:35.279 --> 00:07:38.959
So if it wasn't working, I had messed it up.
00:07:39.759 --> 00:07:44.399
And if I had messed it up, then I needed to figure out a way to fix it.
00:07:44.639 --> 00:07:49.120
I kept trying to come up with another plan and another and another.
00:07:49.439 --> 00:07:53.600
And I couldn't come up with a way to just make it work.
00:07:54.560 --> 00:08:04.319
Now, for the guy who can always come up with a solution, facing a situation I couldn't see my way through, I was devastating.
00:08:05.040 --> 00:08:08.879
Most of my creativity was still trapped inside of the original idea.
00:08:09.199 --> 00:08:11.839
I had to make this practice work.
00:08:12.959 --> 00:08:16.480
I wasn't really asking what choices do I have now.
00:08:16.959 --> 00:08:20.240
I kept asking how do I fix what I broke?
00:08:20.800 --> 00:08:23.120
That's a much smaller question.
00:08:23.680 --> 00:08:36.080
And because I had tied the outcome to my own sense of competence, walking away from the plan felt a lot like admitting I wasn't who I thought I was.
00:08:36.799 --> 00:08:40.559
I still think of 2004 as my year of hell.
00:08:40.879 --> 00:08:43.759
I'm not gonna dress that up for the podcast.
00:08:44.879 --> 00:08:47.200
I can tell you what I learned from it.
00:08:47.360 --> 00:08:49.519
I can tell you how it changed me.
00:08:49.679 --> 00:08:53.360
I can even tell you the things I carry from that year even now.
00:08:54.159 --> 00:08:57.840
That doesn't require me to be glad it happened.
00:08:58.080 --> 00:08:59.919
Eventually something shifted.
00:09:00.159 --> 00:09:02.000
A part of me woke up.
00:09:02.240 --> 00:09:08.799
I started looking outside of the original plan and I remembered that I was not the practice.
00:09:09.039 --> 00:09:13.039
I had skills and experiences that could be valuable somewhere else.
00:09:13.360 --> 00:09:19.600
And once I stopped requiring the solution to look like the original plan, I got creative again.
00:09:20.159 --> 00:09:33.679
I approached a local law firm, they didn't even have an opening advertised, I found a way to show them where I could bring some value, and I created an opportunity that hadn't been sitting there waiting for me.
00:09:34.320 --> 00:09:38.559
I went to work for that firm and started getting back on my feet.
00:09:38.879 --> 00:09:45.679
Looking back on it, I think it's interesting that letting go of the original plan didn't limit my choices.
00:09:45.919 --> 00:09:47.919
It actually gave me a lot more.
00:09:48.159 --> 00:09:52.080
I still wish it hadn't taken me so long to get there though.
00:09:52.960 --> 00:10:00.320
One thing I took away from that experience was learning how to give myself permission to question my own decisions.
00:10:00.639 --> 00:10:04.559
I don't have to stay locked into a plan because I made it.
00:10:04.879 --> 00:10:10.879
And I don't have to feel like I'm somehow being disloyal to what I've already committed to.
00:10:11.120 --> 00:10:13.120
I think that's been good for me.
00:10:13.360 --> 00:10:18.480
It's helped me avoid feeling trapped when life isn't going the way I expected it.
00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:21.440
But I wonder about the other side of that too.
00:10:21.679 --> 00:10:28.639
If I'm always willing to reconsider a decision, does that sometimes make it harder to fully commit to it?
00:10:28.879 --> 00:10:31.759
I don't know, that's something I'm still thinking about.
00:10:32.399 --> 00:10:35.360
But what about the decisions we're making right now?
00:10:35.600 --> 00:10:38.559
Or the ones we haven't even gotten to yet?
00:10:38.799 --> 00:10:42.159
How do we do it right when we're in the middle of it?
00:10:42.399 --> 00:10:44.720
This is where the questions get difficult.
00:10:44.960 --> 00:10:47.200
Okay, where they get more difficult.
00:10:47.919 --> 00:10:50.879
How do you know when to stay and keep trying?
00:10:51.120 --> 00:10:54.000
And how do you know when it's time to make a change?
00:10:54.320 --> 00:10:56.960
I wish I could tell you there's some clear way to know.
00:10:57.200 --> 00:11:02.240
Like five signs it's time to leave your marriage or three reasons you should quit your job.
00:11:02.559 --> 00:11:04.399
Wouldn't that make life easier?
00:11:04.639 --> 00:11:06.159
I wish it worked that way.
00:11:06.399 --> 00:11:07.440
But it doesn't.
00:11:07.759 --> 00:11:10.080
These are really complicated decisions.
00:11:10.320 --> 00:11:14.159
There are people involved, responsibilities, consequences.
00:11:14.480 --> 00:11:22.399
And sometimes even after you've thought through all of it, you're still not gonna know whether you're making the right choice.
00:11:23.039 --> 00:11:27.440
We talk a lot about having the courage to make a change.
00:11:27.759 --> 00:11:30.080
But what about the decision to stay?
00:11:30.399 --> 00:11:34.080
To keep trying when things aren't going the way we expected?
00:11:34.320 --> 00:11:40.799
I think we sometimes disrespect commitment when we assume that staying is always about fear.
00:11:41.039 --> 00:11:46.559
I know I tend to stay with things a long time, probably longer than I should sometimes.
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Part of that may be fear of what's coming next, but that's not all of it.
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There's loyalty, determination, and respect for what I have right now.
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There's respect for the people involved and a belief that something worth building may also be worth fighting for.
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Sometimes staying is courage, sometimes leaving is courage.
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Sometimes either one can be chosen because of fear.
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You kind of have to sit with it.
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The best I've ever been able to do is just sit with those decisions, weigh the options, try things, and pay attention.
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By looking at what I value and the responsibilities that belong in that decision, and by looking at the life I'm living and not the one I imagined from the beginning.
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One thing I try to notice in myself is where my creativity starts going.
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When I still believe in something, I tend to keep looking for ways to make it work.
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What else can I try?
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Is there another way to approach this?
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But sometimes I reach a point where I can't see another way to make it work, and the ideas start going somewhere else.
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My creativity begins building a different future.
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I'm not suggesting that's some kind of test for whether you should leave, but I do think it's worth noticing where your mind starts going.
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And I think it's information worth paying attention to.
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At some point the question may shift from can I make this work to something much harder.
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Do I still want to use my energy to make this work?
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And even after you answer the question, you may not feel certain.
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That uncertainty doesn't disappear just because we want it to or need it to because the stakes are high.
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In fact, the higher the stakes, the more we may wish someone could just tell us what to do.
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And there are people who can help us think through choices, friends who can see things we miss, a therapist who helps us understand what we value, what we're afraid of, and what might be influencing our choices.
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We have to consider the people we love, because our decisions can affect their lives too.
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But nobody else gets to live your life for you.
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No one can promise which path is going to be better.
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I wish I could.
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Then there's another trap in all of this.
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I've already put so much into it, years, money, a degree, maybe a whole identity.
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If I change directions now, was all of that a waste?
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See, I don't think so.
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And I want to be careful not to use that as an excuse to avoid responsibility.
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Sometimes I miss something I should have seen or overestimate what I can do.
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And sometimes I simply just get it wrong.
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I can own a mistake without making that mistake the definition of who I am.
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That was part of what I couldn't do very well back in 2004.
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I wasn't just evaluating what happened.
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I was trying to redeem myself by making the original plan succeed, and I about lost myself in the process.
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But I didn't need the old plan to succeed before I was allowed to make a new choice.
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And the years we put into something don't suddenly become worthless because we decide to do something different.
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We learn things, we built relationships, we grew from the experience.
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We don't have to keep making the same choice forever just to prove that the earlier years mattered.
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There's another version of this that I think is just as important.
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What if nothing actually failed?
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What if it still works and you just don't want it anymore?
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In 2012, I decided I didn't want to continue practicing law.
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That was a very different decision from what happened in 2004.
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This time, I wasn't questioning whether I could make a career in law work.
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I had spent years as an attorney.
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I knew how to do the work.
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The bigger question was whether I wanted to keep doing it.
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And that's where a decision can move beyond practical questions and become existential.
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If I've spent all of these years becoming this thing, and I don't want to be this thing anymore, then who am I?
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And that question isn't limited to careers.
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We can become so identified with our roles that changing them can feel like losing part of ourselves.
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But I didn't stop being me when I stopped practicing law.
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I went back to graduate school and became a therapist, and I brought the lawyer with me.
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Not the job title, but the experience, the way I thought, the things that I had learned.
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Being a therapist added to that, and so did supervising and teaching.
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I'm not the same person I was back in 2004, thank God.
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But I didn't erase that guy, I grew from him.
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And that curious kid who took toys apart just to figure out how they worked, he's still in there too.
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I see it in the way I approach people and problems.
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See, we change, we grow, we take some things with us and leave others behind.
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The road that brought you here isn't wasted at all.
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It was full of experiences that shaped you and the way you make choices today.
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I don't believe that's about fate, but context.
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Let's take a step back and play with a metaphor here.
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Think about a book.
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When you're reading a book and the story takes an unexpected turn, you don't tear out the previous chapter because the next chapter went somewhere different.
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The previous chapter makes the next one possible.
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Some chapters are great, some are painful.
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Some go on way too long, and some end before we wanted them to.
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They're still part of the story.
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And sometimes a later chapter changes what an earlier chapter means.
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The facts of two thousand four haven't changed for me, but what that year means in the larger story of my life has changed.
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For a long time I attached the word failure to it.
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Now I can see other things in it.
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I can see how tightly I had connected achievement to identity.
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I can see how persistence can become attachment.
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That doesn't make two thousand four a good year.
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It means the chapter has more meaning now than I could see while I was living it, and I think that's important.
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We don't have to believe that everything happens for a reason.
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We don't have to pretend every painful experience is secretly a gift, and we don't have to be grateful for every mistake, but everything we've lived becomes part of the person who is deciding what comes next.
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There's another part of major change that I don't think we talk enough about grief.
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We usually hear the word grief and think about death, but grief also accompanies major changes in life.
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A career ends, a marriage ends, a child leaves home.
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We leave a job and the people we cared about, and in some ways those losses can be complicated by the fact that parts of the old life may still be around.
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You may still see the former spouse because you're raising children together.
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You may drive past the old office, may still love parts of the career that you decided to leave.
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Missing something doesn't automatically mean you should go back to it.
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Sometimes regret isn't a request to return.
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Sometimes it's grief or something we wish we could have made work.
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We can decide that it's time to move forward and still feel a sense of loss over what we're leaving behind.
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There's a framework developed by psychologist William Warden called the Tasks of Mourning, and I think it's useful here.
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It was developed around the idea of bereavement, and I'm not suggesting that changing careers is the same as losing someone you love, but I think some of those ideas can help us understand what happens when we let go of a significant part of our lives.
00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:38.160
The first task is accepting the reality of the loss.
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For the kind of changes we're talking about, that might mean accepting that this past part of our life has changed, not deciding it was terrible, not rewriting the past or pretending we never wanted it, just accepting that it isn't our life in the same way anymore.
00:20:57.440 --> 00:21:12.160
The second task is allowing ourselves to experience the pain of the loss, to actually feel it, not immediately trying to turn it into a success story, not deciding that because I chose to change, I'm not allowed to be sad about it.
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We can choose something and still grieve what the choice cost us.
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The third task involves adjusting to a world changed by the loss.
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Those adjustments can be practical.
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They can be internal and social and spiritual, even existential.
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What does my day look like now?
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What changes financially?
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Who am I around?
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How do I understand myself now that this role has changed?
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And what do I believe about where life is going?
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The fourth task is about finding this enduring connection with what was lost while continuing forward with life.
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I love this concept because grief isn't about getting over something or forgetting it, it's about finding a way to carry it.
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And I think
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I think that fits major life transitions beautifully.
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Moving forward doesn't require leaving everything behind.
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Some things are supposed to come with us.
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That's continuity.
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The chapter ends, but the character continues.
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I also want to give regret some room here.
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We have a strange tendency to think that if we regret anything about a decision that proves the decision was wrong, I don't think life is that clean.
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You can leave a career and miss parts of it.
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You can end a relationship and still love the person.
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I think sometimes we want major decisions to give us this clean emotional resolution, closure.
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We decide, we feel peace, the clouds part.
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Everything makes sense again in life.
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Sometimes that happens.
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Sometimes there really is a sense of peace when we finally make a decision.
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And sometimes there isn't.
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Sometimes making a different decision hurts.
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Sometimes the best choice available still carries loss.
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And sometimes we don't know how to feel about a new path until we've actually started walking it.
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With all the reflection and all the careful thinking, we may still get the choice wrong.
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I don't say that to make decision making more frightening.
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I say it because I don't think we should demand something from ourselves that human beings can't do.
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We can't know the future.
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I don't know about you, but my time machine's broken.
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I can't go back and change the past.
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I can't jump ahead and see how this turns out.
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So I look to the tools I actually have.
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Reflection can help us make a thoughtful decision.
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It can't guarantee the outcome.
00:23:48.400 --> 00:23:52.720
That takes me back to something we've been talking about throughout these episodes.
00:23:53.039 --> 00:23:57.920
Maybe confidence isn't knowing that I'm making the right choice.
00:23:58.240 --> 00:24:06.720
Maybe confidence is trusting that I can make the best choice I know how to make with what I know today and keep responding to what I learn.
00:24:07.039 --> 00:24:09.119
If it works, keep building.
00:24:09.359 --> 00:24:11.599
If it doesn't work, learn from it.
00:24:11.920 --> 00:24:14.559
If circumstances change, respond.
00:24:14.880 --> 00:24:18.319
If I change, I need to pay attention to that too.
00:24:18.640 --> 00:24:21.680
And if I need to, I choose again.
00:24:21.920 --> 00:24:28.319
So maybe you're listening to this and thinking about something enormous a marriage, a career, a move.
00:24:28.559 --> 00:24:31.119
Maybe you're thinking about something much smaller.
00:24:31.359 --> 00:24:34.799
Maybe you're wondering if you bought the wrong car.
00:24:35.119 --> 00:24:39.920
The stakes aren't the same, but there's a common experience underneath them.
00:24:40.240 --> 00:24:42.000
I made a choice.
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Now reality has given me information that I didn't have when I made it.
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What do I do with what I know now?
00:24:51.680 --> 00:24:53.759
I can't answer that for you.
00:24:54.079 --> 00:24:57.839
I don't know whether you should stay, I don't know whether you should leave.
00:24:58.160 --> 00:25:02.319
No generic set of rules can carry the weight of those decisions.
00:25:02.640 --> 00:25:11.519
Consider what matters, what you've learned, and the life you're actually living, and give yourself permission to sit with the question.
00:25:11.839 --> 00:25:16.319
You don't have to manufacture certainty just because the decision is important.
00:25:17.440 --> 00:25:19.279
So what do I want to leave you with?
00:25:19.599 --> 00:25:22.319
What do I want you thinking about until next time?
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Maybe there's an old choice in your life that you're questioning right now.
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Instead of judging it with your twenty twenty hindsight, think about what you knew when you made the original choice.
00:25:35.200 --> 00:25:38.559
And then ask yourself what you know now.
00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:40.160
What still matters?
00:25:40.400 --> 00:25:41.519
What changed?
00:25:41.759 --> 00:25:45.119
What are you trying to preserve because you still value it?
00:25:45.440 --> 00:25:50.880
And what are you trying to preserve because you're afraid of what changing direction would mean?
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I can't tell you what answer you'll find.
00:25:53.920 --> 00:25:55.119
You may stay.
00:25:55.440 --> 00:25:57.279
You may choose again.
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You may not know yet.
00:25:59.920 --> 00:26:02.240
And I think there's room for all three.
00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:06.160
Whatever you choose, you aren't starting your life over.
00:26:06.400 --> 00:26:10.319
The plan can fail without becoming a verdict on you.
00:26:10.799 --> 00:26:15.680
You bring what you've learned with you, including the things you do differently.
00:26:15.920 --> 00:26:20.160
You're still you, still learning, still adding, still becoming.
00:26:20.400 --> 00:26:25.440
And when life asks you to make another choice, you're not choosing from the beginning.
00:26:25.680 --> 00:26:27.519
You're choosing from here.
00:26:28.480 --> 00:26:31.680
So, what are the choices you're wrestling with now?
00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:34.799
And are you struggling with what you want to do?
00:26:35.119 --> 00:26:39.359
Or if what making the choice might mean if you did?
