Following Your Knowing Without Certainty

Broome Hut near Winter Park, Colorado - my Fourth of July destination this year

One year ago today I decided to move to Colorado.

I'd been actively pondering the decision for months, but was having a hard time fully making the leap. I'd been at a 90% yes for a LONG time.

I even went to Colorado for a 10-day part-backpacking, part-scouting trip where I had assumed the decision would come to me.

It didn't.

I drove away from Fort Collins the last night of my trip still at 90%.

And then one night I knew.

Three days after returning from the trip I sat outside on my patio, journaling alone. The sun had set and it was completely dark, a lone light shining behind me onto my journal pages.

As I wrote the answer came to me.

Looking back on my journal entry now, I see the moment I knew. I wrote:

I am moving to Colorado. And now, as I write these words, I am smiling. The fear is morphing into excitement right now as I write. An involuntary smile on my lips. Because I know this is right.

I KNEW with everything in me that I needed to move to Colorado.

But NOTHING was certain about the decision.

I would be moving in the middle of a pandemic. I didn't know how I would meet people. Would I be lonely? Would I be able to find and build community?

I didn't know if this decision would negatively impact my business in the long-term. At the time of deciding I knew it wouldn't matter because Covid had made everything virtual. But what about later? Nearly all my professional contacts were in Minnesota. Would I be able to find enough business moving to a new place?

Would I even LIKE living in Colorado? What if the dream I had in my head didn't live up to reality?

Even with all these questions and uncertainty, I still knew.

My knowing wasn't logical. It didn't really make sense on paper. But I knew.

And I've never once regretted following my knowing - in moving to Colorado or in any other decision in my life.

And the times I’ve ignored my knowing? They haven’t typically been disasters, but there’s been a subtle feeling of self-denial, an unsettledness I felt, but couldn’t have told you exactly why or what was going on. It’s definitely been a learning process to listen to my knowing.

I've reflected a lot on knowing and certainty recently.

You can have a deep knowing without having any kind of certainty.

I think we've all learned in the last year and a half, there's never FULL certainty in life, but your knowing can often lead you even further off the map of what is familiar to you - and into the unknown, the uncharted, and the unexplored.

This isn't just about moving.

It's about leaving your career and doing something completely different.

It's about taking a chance on a new relationship when you don't know if it will work or ending an old relationship that everyone else thought was perfect.

It's about picking up a pen and writing down your story without knowing if anyone will ever read it.

It's about following the still small voice inside of you whispering, "Come over here, this is where you need to be."

For me, that voice ALWAYS leads me down the right path.

A path filled with unexpected challenges and growth - and also more joy, discovery, wonder, and magic than I ever could have imagined.

It's the path of aliveness.

Years ago I wrote a folksy song with the line, "Run, run to where I want to be. Take a chance on uncertainty."

This is what your knowing implores you to do. Run towards where you want to be, knowing there is no certainty. There never will be.

So listen to your knowing. CHOOSE your knowing. Follow your inklings and intuition. Pay attention to the whisper behind your heart.

Take a chance on uncertainty.


P.S. The inner critic telling you that you're not good enough, can't make this happen, and just who are you to think you can go off and do this thing is NOT your knowing. If you want to hear more about this distinction, let me know.

P.P.S. If you want to learn more about following your own knowing, check out my book, An Overachiever’s Guide To Breaking The Rules: How To Let Go Of Perfect and Live Your Truth. The whole second half of the book is about reconnecting to yourself.