Clarity needs space
You might think you’re stuck because you don’t know what you want.
But often, that’s not actually the problem.
A lot of people come to me because they feel stuck or unclear. They say things like “I just don’t know what I want anymore” or “I can’t seem to make a decision.” But more often than not, what’s really going on is that they’re overwhelmed.
The thing is, overwhelm doesn’t always look the way we expect it to. At its more extreme end, it can feel like anxiety, dread, or complete shutdown - the kind of fight, flight or freeze response where even simple things feel difficult.
But more often, it shows up in quieter ways: indecision, procrastination, a lack of motivation and enthusiasm or a sense of being slightly switched off or detached from things that you used to care about.
It can look like doing everything except the thing you said you were going to do, and because it’s subtle, it’s easy to miss.
When we’re overwhelmed, our capacity to think with clarity becomes limited. When the nervous system is under sustained pressure, it shifts into a more protective state. It becomes less focused on exploration and decision-making, and more focused on just getting through. As a result, it’s much harder to access clear and calm thinking.
On top of that, most of us are carrying a higher baseline level of stress than we realise. There’s a lot of pressure to have things figured out and to be clear, decisive, and moving forward at all times. In many professional environments, especially as you become more senior, there’s less space to say “I’m not sure” or “I feel a bit lost right now.” So instead, that pressure gets internalised, and often, it has the opposite effect to what we want. And this is where the misinterpretation happens.
We assume things like:
“I don’t know what I want.”
“I’ve lost motivation.”
“Something isn’t quite right.”
But if you’re overwhelmed, clarity isn’t easily accessible, and that’s not because you’re incapable of it, but because your system doesn’t currently have the space for it.
One client who comes to mind initially described it as having “lost their spark”. They had a genuinely exciting opportunity in front of them, something they had been working towards for a long time. But every time they sat down to engage with it, they found themselves doing anything but what they needed to do: playing video games, tidying the house, or just sitting there staring into space. They also realised they weren’t being honest with their close ones about how they were feeling.
Quite quickly, it became clear that this wasn’t a lack of motivation, it was overwhelm.
They felt like they had too much to hold, and not enough capacity to hold it, and so their response was to pull away from it, which was the exact opposite of what they actually wanted.
After a couple of coaching sessions, things started to shift. Not because we suddenly found “the answer”, but because they had space to actually process what was going on.
They were able to:
express what they had been holding
break things down into something more manageable
reconnect with their own capability and experience
And then from there, they felt their engagement starting to return naturally.
When you’re feeling overwhelmed, the instinct is often to push harder. To try and force clarity and to figure everything out as quickly as possible. But what tends to help more is the opposite - creating a bit of space and regulating the nervous system.
That might look like:
going for a walk
exercising
spending time with someone you trust
stepping away from the decision entirely, even briefly
The aim isn’t to solve everything immediately, it’s to regulate your system enough so that you can think again.
Part of the challenge is that we’re operating in an environment with a huge amount of choice. Opening a job board can feel overwhelming, thinking about a new direction, or even a new hobby, can suddenly present too many options, so we end up doing nothing at all. When there’s too much noise, it becomes harder to hear what actually matters to you.
This is where coaching can be helpful. Not because someone gives you the answers, but because it creates the space to understand yourself more clearly. When that understanding is there, decisions tend to feel less forced. They come from a place that is more aligned, and as a result, they often feel much simpler.
It all just takes some care and curiosity.