Feeling Lost or Stuck? How To Move Forward When You Don't Know How

MR
Oct 22
5 min read

What would you do if nothing felt certain and every step forward felt impossible?

You feel stuck, perhaps between a path you don’t want to take and the fear of creating a path of your own, not knowing what to do or how to do it?

What would it take to trust yourself enough to move?

A few months ago, a client came to me feeling exactly that. A job had ended, and she had no motivation; most days were spent at home, unsure of what to do next.

From our first session, I learned that her superpowers were her resourcefulness, her love for adventure, and her ability to do hard things without thinking twice. She was dynamic, accomplished, and brave. Yet she had felt so demoralised by being in the space between that those qualities became overshadowed by the cloud she had been under.

So many of us know that space well. It’s where one thing (job, project, adventure, relationship) has ended, and not knowing if/what that next thing would be or even when it would arrive. We will do everything possible to avoid that space, but sometimes life has other plans.

When she first came to me, she told me that lack of motivation and confidence felt like the biggest hurdles for her to overcome. Over our sessions, I reframed it this way: momentum matters more than motivation. Small, consistent steps create movement. Movement builds confidence. Energy shows up once you’ve already started.

What’s remarkable is where she is now and how she has used that once terrifying and uncomfortable space. Through our sessions, she identified career opportunities that felt good to her and blended her expertise with the way she wanted to work, rather than simply chasing the next role or title.

Networking used to feel intimidating and a waste of time. Together, we redefined it on her terms: the rooms she actually wanted to be in, the people she genuinely wanted to meet, and the small ways to connect that felt natural. Even a coffee with someone who benefited from her experience shifted her energy by reminding her of who she is.

She began to see social invitations as ways for her to show up as the confident woman she knew herself to be (a version that she thought had been buried with her last job). She even admitted to herself that she wouldn’t mind having someone in her personal life again, something she had never really vocalised or prioritised before.

The feelings of immense discomfort were there too. But I offered that since discomfort is there already, we get to choose which version we want to embrace—the unhappiness of staying exactly the same or the uncomfortable feelings of growing and changing. And since she was adept in doing hard things before, she was able to see this as another way of harnessing the muscle of courage that she had built her entire professional life.

When we looked at the challenges from the angle of leaning into the value she knew she could add through her experience and knowledge, without it feeling like every encounter was an audition for her worth, it changed how she saw and carried herself.

This small shift in how we hold ourselves physically and emotionally may feel uncomfortable initially because it’s unfamiliar, especially when the structures that held us up and validated us fall away, and we have to find the strength to stand by ourselves. Structures like a job, a title, a routine, a relationship.

When we do stand up, we shed the weight we have been carrying for having to appear a certain way. We are given a precious chance to redefine how we want to move forward. It’s worth asking, where in our own lives might we be showing up to prove something instead of simply showing up as ourselves, embodying all the experiences and value we bring?

Do we even know what being ourselves looks and feels like? Do we give ourselves the permission to acknowledge our own experiences and strengths without dismissing them as no big deal?

The conversations she and I had became that safe space for her, a place to be seen, to be heard, and to explore what she wanted without judgment or pressure. It became the space for her to reflect on all that she’s done and what she wants to still do. She was able to give voice to what she feared and what she wanted. She could reflect on what was holding her back, get ideas to experiment with new ways forward, and design her own path rather than follow a pre-set formula.

For this client, self-trust began to take root. She was no longer waiting to feel motivated to act; she learned to move anyway, to create movement from within her own life rather than from an external spark. That’s a fundamental psychological and emotional shift—from helplessness to agency. What she found then, were seemingly serendipitous encounters that kept moving her forward.

I could hear it in the quiet confidence in her voice in her reply when I asked her how she felt about motivation today:“I’m not panicked about it anymore.”

It might sound small. But it isn’t. That one sentence tells me everything. She has moved from:

Stuck → to moving
Waiting for inspiration → to building momentum
Feeling demoralised → to seeing possibility again

The outer signs—networking, exploring career paths, reconnecting socially, opening up personally—all stem from that inner recalibration & recognition. But the real transformation is that inner shift. It’s not flashy, it’s foundational. It’s the kind of change that holds. It signals building the muscle of self-trust and turning up the volume of her own inner voice that has always known what she wanted but had always allowed fear and OPO (other people’s opinions) to be louder.

So I will leave you with this one question: What choice could you make today that your future self will thank you for?

Here are some actionable takeaways:

Start small, start moving: Take one step today, however minor — momentum grows from action, not motivation.
Define your own networking: Seek out the people and spaces that feel authentic; even a single coffee counts.
Give yourself permission to explore what excites you: Notice the actions, projects, or moments that make you feel light, curious, or energised, and do more of those.
Act before you feel ready: Don’t wait for certainty. Progress comes from movement, not clarity.
Check where you’re performing versus being: Notice when you’re showing up to prove something and when you’re simply showing up as yourself.
Make one quiet choice today: Even a small decision can shift your future in ways you’ll be grateful for.