60-Second Mind Shift: From Vaguesville to Vision - How you can Find Clarity and Joy
Supporting you to free your mind so you can live from your heart!
“To believe in something not yet proved and to underwrite it with our lives: it is the only way we can leave the future open.”
— Lillian Smith
If you’ve followed my writing for a while, you may have seen me mention what I call the “cosmic joke.” It’s the paradox we all live in: The only certainty in life is uncertainty, and yet we have these human brains that crave certainty.
In my work with clients, we focus deeply on intentionally creating the future. Getting clear on where we want to direct our energy: our goals, dreams, and deepest desires. To the brain, this work can feel really scary. Why? The brain wants proof everything is going to work out before we take action.
Unfortunately, life doesn't work like that.
We create the future by taking new actions that our brain has no evidence for yet. At this stage the brain begins to panic as it looks for evidence and doesn't find any and wants to go back to what it knows. We can then develop the skill to train our brain to focus on our deepest intentions instead.
Now, if you’re wondering, What the heck is an intention, and how do I live from one?
The most helpful definition of intention I’ve learned comes from the Academy for Coaching Excellence (ACE): A Life’s Intention is "a direction, aim, or purpose that gives your life deep meaning." It comes from within and is the spirit and energy behind your goals and dreams. It’s a desire to be a contribution to others in specific ways.
We start to feel successful when we’re willing to get clear on what matters most, and then express it through action.
Let me share a few of my own Life’s Intentions:
To be a loving family member, partner, and friend
To be an effective coach
To be a financially successful entrepreneur
To be physically fit and healthy
To be an adventurer
These intentions act as anchors. They help guide how I use my time, energy, and focus.
Before I understood this, I spent a lot of time in a place I call “Vaguesville”—where I never quite knew what I was supposed to be doing. It left me cycling through anxiety and even depression, sometimes low-grade, sometimes intense.
But once I got clear on what mattered most, I could take aligned action - and I started feeling better. Dare I say, joyous! Because the raw truth is that, if we don’t take new action, we end up creating a default version of the future, more of the past, replayed in the present.
That’s how the future becomes closed.
The only way to keep the future open is to believe in something - ourselves - with your whole heart. And to be willing, even in the face of discomfort and zero proof, to take action anyway.
You have to bet on yourself.
In other words: Leap…and YOU create the net.
Step By Step,
Jessie
Step By Step,
Jessie
