The Fastest Way to Get Clarity: Foster the Dog 🐶
Life is full of decisions.
What should you do next in your career?
Should you start a relationship with that person? (Or end one?)
Should you have kids?
Should you start a business?
Should you move to a new city?
These are very important decisions in your life.
And because they’re so important, you (understandably) want to be very thoughtful about them.
But here’s where thoughtfulness can lead you astray.
Imagine if you were trying to decide whether or not to get a dog.
What do you think is the fastest and most effective way of making this decision?
Pathway 1: Spend 6 months doing research, making pro/con lists, looking at dog adoption websites, reading dog owner forums, asking everyone for advice, and ruminating on this question for hours and hours
Pathway 2: Foster a dog for 1 month.
I guarantee, Pathway 2 is the faster AND more effective way of figuring out whether or not you want a dog.
But so often, when it comes to big life questions, we default to Pathway 1.
Not because we’re trying to avoid the question or procrastinate on taking action.
We’re genuinely trying to make progress!
And Pathway 1 FEELS so thoughtful and productive!
But that feeling is an illusion.
All that endless research and ruminating is NOT getting you any closer to clarity, conviction, or a solid decision.
If you want to figure this out…
Stop reading about the dog.
And foster the dog.
DON’T work on the problem of “How can I research this even better? What question have I not asked? What angle have I not considered? What exercise can I do? Who can I ask for advice?”
Your brain will be tempted to go in that direction.
Pull it back and point it at this question instead: “How can I ‘foster the dog’ in this situation?”
It may take some creativity to figure out how to make that happen! But I’d rather have you spend your brainpower on that than on another theoretical discussion.
Let me give you some examples of how I’ve “read about the dog” vs. “fostered the dog” in my own life.
Read about the dog: I spent 10 years trying to figure out what kind of writer I wanted to be.
I read articles.
I listened to podcasts.
I signed up for courses.
I analyzed the paths of other writers.
I researched publishing, entertainment, journalism, and other “writing-adjacent” industries.
I asked for lots of advice and had many long, thoughtful conversations about what I was learning.
And I never got to a clear answer.
Foster the dog: I started writing two pieces a week. No plan — I just had to write something and hit send. To keep myself accountable, I sent the pieces to a small group of friends via email. Within 6 weeks, I figured out what I wanted to do.
Read about the dog: In January, I started thinking I might want to move from New Jersey back to NYC.
I looked up lots of buildings and units
I researched various neighborhoods.
I talked to friends about my plans.
I considered moving in with my sister (who already lived in NYC) and made a list of pros and cons AND a list of all the prep we would have to do if we did end up living together.
I gave myself 5-6 months to come up with a final answer.
Foster the dog: My sister gets full credit for this one. On Saturday, February 4th, she said “Pack a suitcase and come to my apartment tomorrow. Let’s just try living together for a month and see what happens.”
On Sunday, February 5th, I packed my stuff, called an Uber, and showed up on her doorstep.
All the prep I was SURE we would have to do before we could move in together? Turns out, it was totally unnecessary and we could just figure it out on the fly.
When something is very important to you, thinking and planning and organizing and analyzing SEEM like the right answer.
But the reality is you will learn 100x more, 100x faster by DOING rather than thinking.
And you don’t need to leap blindly into the unknown or make a lifelong, high-stakes commitment.
You can find cheap, easy, low-stakes ways to “foster the dog” without locking yourself in or closing off other avenues.
You just need to pull your brain away from the tempting question of: How can I analyze this even better?
And point it toward the more helpful question: How can I foster the dog?
Once you understand this in theory, there are only two reasons you wouldn’t get busy “fostering dogs” and figuring out how to build the life you want, step by step.
You don’t have the time and bandwidth to think this through, come up with creative options, and execute on your experiments
Your fears and emotional cobwebs block you from following through
Luckily, both of of these have the same solution: Hire a coach.
A weekly coaching call gives you the dedicated time, structure, and accountability to systematically make progress even when your life is nuts.
No matter what, you’ve got an hour a week set aside + an experienced brainstorming partner to help come up with creative experiments AND creative ways to execute them even when you’re busy.
(I’ve had plenty of clients tell me, “Well, I didn’t want to tell you that I DIDN’T do what I said I would do… So I found a way to get it done this week.”)
And it’s totally normal to hesitate and pull back when it’s time to actually do the thing you’ve been talking about for so long.
You’re not lazy or uncommitted. The only thing that happened is a thought and feeling came up in the moment and blocked you from taking action.
You just need to shine a light on your blocker thought and figure out whether you want to agree with it or change your perspective.
(Both are valid. I just want you to be deliberate about it.)
And this is exactly what we do in coaching.
No spinning your wheels for months wondering what you should do or why you can’t execute.
We break through the noise in a matter of weeks and get you moving in the direction you actually want to go.
Let’s get started today.
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