Some decisions become more opaque the harder we try to illuminate them. We analyse them in the morning, revisit them while driving, ask for opinions and write down scenarios. By the end, we know much more, yet still cannot see where to begin.
Some time ago, a department head came to an individual coaching session with a notebook full of notes. She was considering leaving a role built over many years to pursue a different professional possibility. She had already considered financial security, her family’s reaction, the weight of responsibilities and what she might lose. At work, she was used to making decisions. In this situation, every line of thought seemed to bring her back to the starting point.
At one point, I asked what she really needed to understand before choosing. She closed the notebook and fell silent.
“I don’t know whether I want to leave or whether I just need room to breathe.”
The decision remained open, while the focus of our work changed. Until then, she had treated the issue as a comparison between two opportunities. Beneath it lay something else: accumulated exhaustion, loyalty to what she had built and the fear that wanting something different meant being ungrateful.
I often encounter this dynamic in coaching. Someone brings an apparently clear question: “Do I stay or go?” In other cases, they need to decide whether to accept a proposal or how to approach a postponed conversation. The difficulty comes from the number of issues packed into that question.
When everything is equally loud
Confusion is described as a lack of clarity. In daily life, it more often resembles too many voices. A fact, a prediction, a fear and someone’s opinion may all end up on the same level. Every element then seems equally urgent and equally true.
Take a simple situation. “The household budget is already very tight” is a fact to consider. “So I will never be able to change jobs” is a conclusion. It may be understandable, especially when security matters greatly, but it remains a conclusion. Between the two statements lies a space where different timings, conditions to check and solutions not yet visible may emerge.
In an individual session, an important part of the work is slowing down and giving different places to elements that have become mixed together. We start with what actually happened and the information available. Then we observe the meaning given to those facts, alongside expectations weighing on the choice. Personal values, practical limits and existing resources also enter the picture, including those the person tends to forget under pressure.
The first relief often comes from noticing that what occupies the mind is not always equally concrete. Silence may have been interpreted as rejection. An initial difficulty may have become proof that the direction is wrong. A family habit may have turned into a rule no one has ever discussed.
Creating order makes it possible to see where the facts end and the story we build around them begins. This is where the choice starts to become more understandable.
Words that become walls
“At my age, you don’t start again.”
Limiting beliefs rarely announce themselves. They often sound like common sense and rest on words that seem definitive. “If I ask for help, it means I’m incapable” is another phrase that can narrow the field before a possibility has even been examined.
A belief like this acts as a filter. It decides in advance which possibilities deserve consideration and which must be excluded. It may have grown from a real experience, a family message or a need for protection. It may have served a purpose in the past while being inaccurate in the present situation.
I remember a woman who wanted to return to work after devoting many years to her family. She spoke of those years as a gap and judged herself by what was missing from her CV. Our discussion revealed abilities practised every day: managing the unexpected, mediating between incompatible needs, organising complex schedules and supporting difficult decisions. The CV showed a formal gap. Her skills had grown in ways she had never named.
The useful shift was to treat “I’ve stood still” as a hypothesis to examine. Which facts supported it? Which experiences contradicted it? What would change if she described that period more precisely?
In individual coaching, pausing over a phrase like this can open up considerable space. The words we repeat easily become the frame through which we read every possibility. When the frame changes, the available questions change with it.
Another recurring topic in my individual coaching sessions is the size of questions. When they are too large, they seem precise but ask for an answer capable of containing the future.
“Should I leave my job?” includes the relationship with the current environment, finances, professional identity, consequences for those close to us and fear of regret. It is difficult to answer everything at once.
A more focused question can be much more honest. Which conditions would need to change for staying to make sense? What am I accepting as inevitable without checking? Which part of the situation is really draining me?
A question’s value is measured by what it allows us to observe. A good question brings someone closer to something they can recognise, discuss or test. It reduces the noise while preserving the importance of the choice.
This is one aspect I find particularly valuable in individual work. Discussion creates time in which there is no need to defend a position immediately. A sentence can be paused, viewed from another angle and returned to the person as a question. Sometimes this is enough to notice that we were trying to solve the wrong problem.
Before yes or no
“I’d already imagined how it would go. I hadn’t asked him anything yet.”
When a choice weighs heavily, even a small gesture can seem definitive. A phone call feels like a commitment already made; even asking for information or expressing doubt seems to set irreversible consequences in motion.
A first step can have a more modest task: providing information.
An entrepreneur I worked with was considering a collaboration that could rapidly grow his business. The proposal was interesting, but he kept feeling alarmed. In conversation, it emerged that he had already imagined how responsibilities would be distributed, how much space he would lose and which conflicts would arise. None of these points had been openly discussed with the potential partner.
The session ended with a conversation to prepare. He wanted to understand how the other person envisaged decisions, operational workload and room for independence. Yes or no would come later, supported by information that had previously been missing.
A step like this brings thought into contact with reality. It may be a time-limited trial, a postponed discussion, a request for precise information or a decision to protect for a few days a space usually given away automatically. It gains value when it carries a question: what do I want to understand through this action?
The result then enters the decision as another piece of information.
A sheet of paper before an answer
If a situation keeps going round in your head, take a sheet of paper and give yourself a few minutes. Use the words you would say to someone you trust. The aim is to make your way of thinking visible.
The situation in one sentence
Write what you are trying to decide without telling the whole story yet. A short sentence makes you choose the centre of the issue.
The fact you cannot ignore
State what you know because it happened, was said or can be verified. For now, keep feared consequences and intentions attributed to others separate.
The phrase that closes possibilities
Look for the expression that returns most often: “I can’t”, “it’s too late now”, “I must manage alone”, “if I choose for myself, I’ll disappoint someone”. Write it exactly as it appears in your mind. Then ask where it comes from and which facts make it true today.
What you want to protect
Behind resistance may lie an important value or a practical limit. You may want to protect financial stability, a relationship, health or the time needed for a responsibility you have taken on. Naming what matters avoids treating every fear as an irrational obstacle.
A possible test
Choose an action within your control that can happen within a few days. It should be contained enough to let you observe its effect. Then complete the sentence: “Through this step, I want to understand whether...”
This last question lightens the action and gives it a precise task: showing you something you do not yet know.
When someone returns after an initial test, they do not always bring the result they hoped for. That is precisely where the work becomes interesting.
A conversation may confirm that room for negotiation is minimal; a trial may put a seemingly powerful desire into perspective. In other cases, unexpected resistance or a practical limit previously in the background emerges.
These results also help, provided we examine them. When an attempt does not work, the useful question concerns what it revealed. Perhaps a resource was missing. The timing may have been unrealistic. Someone involved may not be available to build the imagined solution. Or the direction may require an investment you do not want to make today.
In my own life, I have experienced changes of country, language, work and role. Looking back, I recognise that clarity rarely arrived all at once. It took shape as I observed what happened, what continued to weigh on me and the possibilities that gained substance when I stopped keeping them only in my mind.
This is why I consider the first step part of thinking. Acting attentively allows us to gather an answer; then we look at the situation again with something more.
Leaving without an answer
“I haven’t decided yet. But now I know what I need to check.”
The department head who arrived with her notebook chose two tests: having a conversation she had long postponed at work and meeting someone active in the field she wanted to explore. She wanted to understand how she felt when faced with real possibilities, instead of continuing to evaluate them only in her head.
The decision remained open, but it was no longer confused in the same way.
When you feel stuck, you might begin here: which part of the situation really requires a choice today, and which first needs information, a more precise question or a discussion you are avoiding?
Useful clarity coexists with some uncertainty and allows you to move without giving the first gesture the weight of your entire future.
If you want to work on a transition that currently seems unclear, individual coaching can start with what you are experiencing and make it more understandable, until we identify a step that makes sense for you.
The introductory conversation is a space to tell me where you are and understand which direction to give our discussion.
Further reading
What is coaching? An essential guide to the coach’s role and how a programme is developed.
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