E31: What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do

In this week’s episode, I talk about how to move forward when you don’t have clarity. What do you do with all of the unanswered questions you carry?

I share a simple practice for getting those questions out of your head and into a place where they can actually rest, so you can be present for the life that’s right in front of you.

If you’re feeling stuck and seeking direction, this one is for you.

Get Angie's Book: Girl in the Spotlight — available in print and audio 

Subscribe to Angie's weekly letter Hello Friday

Instagram: @angiemizzell

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:21

We don't always have that kind of clarity. In fact, most of the time, we do not have that kind of clarity. So, what do we do when we don't know what to do? Hi everyone, I'm Angie Mazell, and welcome to More Like You. It is the first week of April 2026, the beginning of Q2, if you think in terms of quarters. I don't in the corporate sense of quarters, Q1, Q2, but I do mentally divide my year up into seasons. Over the years, I have learned to take a moment to pause as we start to enter a new season and use that as an opportunity to take an inventory, to reflect, to regroup. I really started adopting this when I became a mom. Not initially like when my first child was very little, but once we got put back into the system of the school year and my calendar and my life and my routines center around the school calendar, I have started to learn that with every turn of the season, some things have to shift. My routines have to shift. So here we are entering April. I have spent Q1 preparing for and announcing the release of my audiobook. So the past four episodes have been centered around the announcement of the audiobook for my memoir, Girl in the Spotlight. This has really been an opportunity for me to reintroduce you, the listener, to the themes of the book, why I felt like that story mattered. The story has a lot of overlapping themes around breaking cycles, redefining success. There's a mother-daughter story. It's the story of my relationship with my husband. And the reason that the book exists at all is because all of these themes and storylines essentially came together. And it brought me to a moment of crystal clarity. And in that clarity, I was able to make a bold leap of faith, stepping into an unknown future, leaving my career in television news, and moving into the unknown. I could not have made that leap had I not reached a moment of clarity and peace and a deep sense of knowing. I was stepping into the unknown from a place of deep knowing that I was moving in the right direction. But here's the thing, and this is what I want to talk to you about today. We don't always have that kind of clarity. In fact, most of the time, we do not have that kind of clarity. So, what do we do when we don't know what to do? And even in the story I tell in Girl in the Spotlight, for most of the book, I am carrying many questions that I did not have the answers to. And because of that experience, as I've experienced new seasons of life, I've learned to make peace with the uncertainty. I've learned to make peace with the questions that do not yet have answers. I've learned to accept and have a new relationship with the things I do not yet know. There are some questions I will never get the answers to. So, how do we make peace with this uncertainty? And how do we move forward with any sort of confidence? Recently, I've been thinking about what Carrie Mori, the owner of Callie's Hot Little Biscuit, said to me in a podcast episode we did last fall. She was talking about building her business while raising a family. And she said something to the effect of, I was flying the plane as I was building it. And that's how I've been feeling lately. Sometimes you have to keep going. You are flying the plane and you are building it at the same time. That can be true for a lot of things. You are raising a family, you are flying that plane and building it at the same time. You start a new business, you're flying the plane, you're building it at the same time. But that works for a while before it starts to feel unsettling. I know for me personally, I start to feel the pull to get grounded and rooted in something. Sometimes there are so many unknowns, and it starts to feel very heavy. Something I do as an ongoing practice is I do spend a decent amount of time in meditation and prayer, if not every morning, many mornings a week. I often meditate, reflect, offer up my questions to God. I feel like I'm in constant conversation with the higher power. However, I notice that sometimes when the questions start to build up or life gets a little bit busy, I start to feel overwhelmed, or maybe I'm going through a season of loss or grief, or life has thrown me some unexpected curveballs. These questions start to mount. And I notice that even though I have prayed about them, I'm still also holding them in my head. I can't stop my brain from actively trying to solve a problem that isn't ready to be solved. I can tell because I feel the tension in my body, I start to force the clarity, force an absolute. This is what I do. It is a very simple practice. I take the questions that I'm carrying, I name the question and I write it down. Name the question you are carrying and write it down. Where do you write it down? That's up to you. I would highly recommend a notebook. I really believe there is something powerful about writing by hand. I do have a notebook that is not a journal as much as it's a working notebook that I keep with me. And sometimes it will hold my daily to-do list. It also helps me plan out projects I'm doing for work. But whatever is my current working notebook, I use it to hold my open-ended questions. You can also use the notes app on your phone. I always turn to the notes app on my phone when pen and paper are not immediately available to me. It's not as important where you do it. What's more important is that it becomes a practice so that you know where these questions live so that you can go back and review them. So, what kind of questions are we talking about? For me, they are big questions, they are small questions. They can seem kind of trivial. Should I accept that invitation? Or something much larger, maybe related to a relationship or a decision you're trying to make about work or something where you feel like the stakes are very high. There are no rules. For me, these questions are typically questions that feel like they're in the realm of my control, that they are actionable on my part, that I feel like requires a decision eventually. The common denominator is typically that the question is lingering. The question is something that you're carrying in a way that is becoming a distraction. The most important thing that this practice does is it gets the question or the questions out of your brain. You're not letting it go. What you're doing is you're taking it out of your head and out of the place where your body holds burdens and you're putting it somewhere else. You're storing it in a safe place. So you're not carrying the load. But the question is still there. The question is still important. The question still warrants some sort of response and acknowledgement. You're simply lightening the load. You're not carrying it. Here's what's so fascinating about this practice. When you go back and look at the questions, whether you do it at the end of the day, you do it once a week, once a month. Whenever you go back to review these questions, it is always surprising to me to see which questions have resolved themselves, which questions have moved from no direction whatsoever to in progress. Or I've noticed that question or concern doesn't feel as important anymore because of new information that has come in. From many of the questions, I'm always surprised to see that they've either been answered, resolved, or the urgency around that question has lessened. And occasionally there is something still sitting there that feels big and heavy and unresolved, but it's no longer crowded by a snowball of other things. And then you can decide is there something that I need to do? Is there something I just need to pause and let myself feel? Is there something I need to release? Writing down the questions isn't a magic wand, except sometimes it is. It clears space for the questions that really deserve our attention and we can revisit them with a fresh mind. We can see the question with clearer eyes. If you're in a season of uncertainty, if you're carrying a lot of questions that don't have clear answers yet, remember that I don't know or I don't know yet, or I'm in the process of figuring it out. Those are all valid answers. The more we can make peace with and learn to live with things that are unresolved, the freer we are to go about our day, to live and actively engage with the present tense moments of our lives. If we live in the present tense, it keeps the energy moving. We look back and realize that some of these questions were resolved and they were resolved in the living. Anything we can do to move into a new season to lighten our load, to set aside the things that are weighing heavy on us so that we can actively engage with the day that is before us, we will find that it all works hand in hand. And we don't have to have all the answers, and we don't have to have crystal clarity to live an authentic life. And the answers will come in time. So that's all I have for you today. If you put this into practice, I would love to hear from you. Let me know how it turns out. A little update about the podcast. I've recently moved my podcast to Substack. If you are subscribed to the podcast already and it showed up in your podcasting app, then that means the transition went smoothly and everything on the technical back end worked the way it should. But the good news is because it has moved to my Substack, it means that, more like you, this podcast is now in conversation with my weekly letter, Hello Friday, which is the heart of my work. It is the best way to stay in touch with me. Hello Friday is also on Substack, and now the podcast and the weekly newsletter are together in one place. You can click on the link to my Substack in the show notes, and you can find the post for this episode, and you can leave a comment. What I love about bringing Hello Friday and the podcast to Substack is that it creates that sense of community that we all get so much from. So come on over to angiemazelle.substack.com and join the conversation. Have a great rest of your week, and I'll see you back here next time.