A lack of clarity can be really daunting. Where do you start? When do you know you’re ready to start or if you picked the right starting place? Will you be okay with the result? There are so many questions that we ask when we lack clarity. We want to know the right answer to our questions. However, that desire doesn’t always help us out. Sometimes we get stuck trying to find the right answer and we don’t take any action. Sometimes taking the first step clears the way for clarity.

Asking Questions to Gain Clarity

Reflection can be a good step towards clarity. Especially when the other options seem too daunting or when we are trying to learn from previous steps.

Try asking yourself these questions:

1. What are the four most recent changes that you have made in your life?
2. What triggered you to make those changes?
3. Can you connect how each trigger and each change resulted in another trigger for change?
4. If you can connect them, did you gain any insight into what change you might address next? If you couldn’t connect them, do you see any patterns in your process for deciding what to work on in each case?

I’m interested in hearing your answers to question 4.

I asked it in this way, because I was able to connect my triggers and changes into a sort of chain reaction. I’m curious if this is your experience or if it works in a different way for you.

Behavior Challenge:  If taking the first step clears the way for clarity, take some time to reflect on what your first step will be.

Sometimes we act out of beliefs that are passed down to us from the media, society, or others that we know. These beliefs aren’t always intentionally accepted, but they can become a part of how we look at the world. When we don’t realize that our behavior is affected by what we think, a view like that is easy to miss. However, when the connection between beliefs and behaviors becomes clear we start to realize the importance of being intentional about our views. This means reflecting on the questions of where do beliefs come from and how can we form intentional, or better, beliefs?

Where do beliefs come from?

When I write about beliefs in this article I am talking about how we see the world and ourselves from different domains of life. For example, there are beliefs that we hold about our health and fitness. There are beliefs that we hold on finances. There are beliefs we hold about singleness and marriage. There are many categories I could name. In each one of them, the view we hold often times come of a variety of sources.

In my journey of personal growth it has become apparent that knowing where your beliefs come from is important. There are probably things in our lives that we believe, but perhaps we haven’t taken an intentional look at why we believe them.

A look at fitness beliefs

Let’s take a look at the domain of fitness. We all probably have thoughts about fitness that don’t really come from ourselves. One of these shows a limited view of how we think we should be active and exercise. As if there are one or two right ways and the rest are inadequate and therefore not of value.   

Think about it this way. Many people have this default idea that working out means that you go to the gym. If you aren’t a gym person you probably don’t work out. Yet, you can work out in other ways. You can swim, or run, or join a dance class. You can do a lunch time walk or sprint up the stairs once every day. These things are also working out.

I bet you can come up with other ways to work out that fit you and your current situation. We can get to these ideas when we realize that we’ve been thinking about our workout from the wrong perspective. Perhaps it was someone else’s perspective that we adopted and it’s time to get in touch with what working out means for us.

3 Tips to Intentional Beliefs

An intentional look at what we believe is important as we go through life and aim to grow. To continue to do things in the same way as everyone else without reflecting doesn’t always lead to the best results.

Here are 3 tips towards intentional beliefs:

1. Ask – Ask yourself how you came to this belief.  
2. Acknowledge – Acknowledge where your view originated. Is it from you, a parent, a friend, society, social media?
3. Answer  or Affirm– Answer that belief with a different one if it needs to change or affirm it if it’s a belief you have chosen.

Can you think of one area in your life where you have let outside influences determine your thoughts or beliefs about something?

Behavior Challenge:  Reflect on areas where you might be struggling to grow and see if there are any beliefs that might be holding you back. Then try to answer that belief with a different belief.

For more reading:

3 Tips to Jump Start Your Personal Reflection Habit

Do You Enjoy Silence and Reflection?

No one wants vulnerability but we all want clarity. Can we gain clarity without being vulnerable? Clarity, vulnerability, and daring greatly all go together, as seen in the work of Brené Brown in her book, Daring Greatly.

The Connection between Vulnerability and Clarity

While the research discussed in Daring Greatly is compiled from interviews on shame and vulnerability, you don’t have to read very far into the book before Brown makes a connection between vulnerability and clarity.

“Our willingness to own and engage with our vulnerability determines the depth of our courage and the clarity of our purpose.”

Brené Brown, Daring Greatly, page 2

From that one sentence we can learn a lot about clarity. Let’s first look at “the clarity of our purpose.” This means a clearness of what we are meant to accomplish and live in this life. Isn’t that what we all mean when we say we need clarity?

I know what it’s like to feel a lack of purpose due to a lack of clarity. You can read more about that here.

Brown states that the clearness of our purpose is affected by our willingness to “engage with our vulnerability.”

Uh-oh. This means that if we lack clarity perhaps we are avoiding vulnerability.

Vulnerability and Being Who We Are

If we are struggling to find clarity in a situation, perhaps it is a cue to spend some time targeting those areas where we are most afraid to be vulnerable. 

For example, if we are struggling to stand out in crowd and be ourselves, or to engage with people on a real level, we need to consider how our lack of vulnerability might be affecting us.

“When we pretend that we can avoid vulnerability we engage in behaviors that are often inconsistent with who we want to be.”

Brené Brown, Daring Greatly, page 45

Ouch. That one hurt.

Yet, think about it. If our energy is spent worrying about avoiding all that will bring shame and vulnerability, we have blocked ourselves. How have we blocked ourselves? We have blocked the energy that could bring us great inspiration or confidence in who we are.

If we are so weighed down with the weight of hiding from others, we are also blocking ourselves from expressing who we are.

I’m in This with You

It’s still soon after reading this book and I admit that I have a lot of processing, reflecting, and change ahead of me.

It took me 3 different tries to read the book past the chapter on shame. The chapter on shame is an eye opening chapter. It was challenging. It was hard. I needed to read it. Unpacking all that I learned in that single chapter, much less the whole book, will take time. Therefore, I don’t have a personal growth story to share like I typically do.

Although, there is one story that might illustrate that I’m in this with you.

I wrote and preached sermons in graduate school. In my experience of sermon writing I learned an important lesson: finding a great message to preach often meant finding and sharing a message that I truly needed to work on myself, as much as I felt called to preach it to others. This article feels the same way.

I too struggle with having the courage to dare to gain clarity through vulnerability. Reading Daring Greatly was my first step.

If you hope to gain the courage to be you, read Daring Greatly by Brené Brown. It’s worth it.

Behavior Challenge: Pick one area where you most fear vulnerability and try to act even when feeling vulnerable.

Maybe it’s leaving a comment…

Finding time for silence and reflection often gets pushed aside. There’s too much to do to. You’ve been going, going, going and just want to lounge on the couch and watch a movie or listen to music. Maybe you don’t like silence. Maybe reflection isn’t something you’re used to and you can’t understand why someone would want to be so thoughtful about everything. Some people enjoy silence and reflection and others are struggling to use it wisely. Which one are you?

What we avoid: silence, reflection, and veggies.

I had a strange thought yesterday and I want to run it by you. I’ve been making a lot of changes to what and how I eat, so keep that in mind.

Our language about vegetables and silence are more similar than you’d think. Veggies are rich in nutrients and they are good for our bodies. Silence is rich in opportunity for clarity and it’s good for our minds.

Yet we like to avoid them.

Why do we always blame the veggies?

“Opps, I got too many veggies!” I bet we’ve all said that many times.

Or me just after my meal tonight, “I ate too many vegetables.”

Veggies aren’t the bad stuff. Do we really get or eat too many vegetables?

Thanks to some reading in this area, I am working to think different thoughts about vegetables. Like this, “Alright, I’m good. Half my plate is veggies.”

Or “I love steamed broccoli!”

Or “I ate too much meat (or bread, or potatoes).”

Do you hear the difference? With the thinking about veggies as something negative we are framing our experience of veggies as negative. Therefore we don’t eat as many of them. Veggies are really good for us though, so thinking of them in a positive way will likely improve our health.

The same goes for silence and reflection.

Why do we always blame the silence?

Ok, maybe not always, but think about sayings like these, “It’s too quiet in here!”

“I just spent way too much time thinking.”

Are you going to explode if it’s too quiet? (Extroverts, I see you nodding your heads yes.) Did you think that you could make a big decision without a bit of thought?

It’s so difficult these days to unplug, but it’s important for our clarity.

We open ourselves up to more clarity when we are able to spend time thinking about next steps, future goals, what we really want to do, and how we want to do it.

If we can see how our clarity is affected by our thoughts, we can work towards saying things like, “This quiet is just what I need to do some reflection on my day and see if there is anything to be learned from the day.” Or “I just had a very helpful reflective session and I feel clearer about my next steps.”

Silence is as good as veggies. Let’s not waste it or pass it up.

Do you enjoy silence and reflection or is it something that you have to work at?

Behavior Challenge: Turn off your screen after this post and sit in silence for a minute. Or, if you usually do things on the computer while listening to something in the background turn that background sound off. Be present to what you are working on or doing.

You thought I was going to make you eat veggies. That’s the Bonus Challenge.

However, if you are looking for a different way to approach your health and weight loss, or want to know where I got my energy for vegetables, read Mini Habits for Weight Loss (I currently don’t have any affiliate links).

Here’s more reading on changing those negative thoughts: What’s a Limiting Belief and Why Should I Care?