A 4-Step Process to Take You From Stuck Indecision to Action

First published on October 21, 2021

One of the semi-accidental privileges of hosting a podcast where I get to speak to coaches about their work and their journeys is that I learn new ways to support my clients and other people in my life. I say semi-accidental, because although I made the podcast because it felt like it should be made, I knew I would benefit from having these conversations.

One of my favourite coaching cheat-moves came from interviewing the brilliant Marcia Reynolds on the back of the release of her book, Coach the Person, Not the Problem. Marcia says that after decades of coaching (and being ranked as Global Gurus' #5 coach in the world), she had seen a pattern of what was going on when people came to coaching sessions with her bringing a dilemma. Mostly, Marcia explains in our conversation and in her book, it turned out that they didn't really need help making a decision, they needed help finding the courage to take the decision they had already made.

This is a powerful distinction. When you're next stuck in indecision, you can ask yourself the question: do I really not know what to do, or is it just too scary to take the step that I know is right?

Courage is a slippery beast, however. Not quite as slippery as confidence (don't forget that confidence is a result of action, not a requirement for taking it), but slippery nonetheless. And that's because it's hard to act when we're afraid.

It's important to remember what courage is, really. I like David Gemmell's definition: courage is acting in the face of fear. It's that simple.

What's interesting about courage, though, is that it is also, in my view, one of the most admirable human qualities. There is nothing quite like seeing people take action that they are afraid of, however that might show up in their lives. It is a true privilege of my life to see people acting courageously in my work: by speaking the truth, by taking action, sometimes simply by turning up for a conversation with me, a strange man they've never met, about what's most important to them.

So, if you've been feeling stuck, and you've used Marcia's question and realised that, actually, you aren't stuck because you don't know what to do, you're stuck because you know what to do but are afraid to do it, you might want to remind yourself that taking action will be brave. And bravery, or courage, is one of the most admirable human traits. Probably (although everyone is different), being brave is a quality you would like to develop in yourself, courageous is how you would like to be seen.

But, at this point, you might be thinking 'Yes, but I'm not brave!' or 'Yes, but how do I actually get started?' or 'What do I literally do to move this thing forward now I know the direction? I'm afraid!!!'

And here, we might want to turn to another coaching cheat-move, from the work of Nancy Kline and her book Time to Think: the incisive question. The incisive question takes a belief that is false and is causing someone difficulties, temporarily removes it from the person's thinking and, doing so, unleashes their creativity on their problem. It shouldn't work, but it does. It goes something like this:

'I don't know how to take the next steps, because I'm not brave.'

Incisive question: If you were brave, what are the next steps you would take?

Or:

'I can't possibly move forward, I'm too afraid.'

Incisive question: If you weren't afraid, how would you move forward?

And then, there, I think we have it. A three-step process for moving from stuck in indecision to action. Or, maybe it's four steps:

1) Ask a version of Marcia's question: Do you really not know what decision to take, or do you 'only' need the courage to take the decision?

2) Remember that courage is an incredibly admirable quality, simply defined as acting in the face of fear. Pressfield's lessons on Resistance might help, too, particularly: the places we feel the most Resistance are the most important for our soul's evolution.

3) If you don't know what literal steps to take, ask yourself an incisive question: 'If I wasn't afraid here, what steps would I take?'

4) Take the steps. This isn't easy, and you will be afraid. But the beautiful part of it, remember, is that confidence is a result of taking action. So when you take courageous steps, you are in Dan Sullivan's amazing sequence of growing confidence.

Four steps. Simple, but not easy.