Stop Waiting for Clarity - Tools to See (and Build) Your Next Level

Waiting for clarity can feel responsible, but it often becomes a quiet way to stay stuck. When the dream feels big and the path feels foggy, the real skill is learning how to “see” your next level from where you are and take steps before you feel ready. I’m Amanda Parker, and I’m sharing the exact practices I use to bridge that gap in my life and business, especially when I’m overwhelmed, second-guessing myself, or tempted to freeze.

We walk through five tools for personal growth and transformation that make your future feel tangible: new moon intentions (a monthly ritual for goals and reflection), vision boarding (to define what you actually want, not what you think you should want), future-focused journaling (including a powerful “what could go wrong and how would I handle it” prompt), and a letter from your future self that spells out the habits and sacrifices your dream will require. If you’re navigating uncertainty, anxiety about the future, or a major career or business shift, these practices help you turn vague hope into a clear inner map.

We also go deep on visualization as mental rehearsal, including how I wrote and recorded a short script in my own voice so I can practice the same vivid future daily. To make it practical, I invite you to treat this work like an experiment: pick one tool and try it for 10 days, then notice what changes in your confidence, focus, and decisions. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s feeling stuck, and leave a review to help more people find the show.

Ready to go deeper on your journey of personal or spiritual growth?

1. Get this episode's full Show Notes with key takeaways, quotes, and resources
2. Book an Oracle Reading with Amanda for personalized spiritual guidance
3. Get on the Waitlist for the Inner Authority Lab and transform your practice
4. Follow me on LinkedIn for daily wisdom on spiritual awakening and intuition

Transcript

Welcome And What We’re Solving

Stop Waiting For Clarity

The Big Gap And Self Sabotage

Five Tools To Pre Visualise

New Moon Wishes And Intentions

Vision Boards That Actually Work

Journaling Your Future Day

A Letter From Future You

Visualization As Mental Rehearsal

Ten Day Experiments And Next Steps

Closing Thoughts And Thanks

Amanda Parker 0:00

These are five incredibly powerful tools that can take you from this place of not really being sure what you want, not really having the clarity on what that looks like or how you can get there to fully owning and honoring those dreams that you have and knowing that when you go through even one of these tools, if you do it on a regular basis, it will help you to reach your next level. Welcome to Don't Step on the Bluebells, the podcast where personal healing and transformation takes center stage. I'm your host, Amanda Parker, and I'm a fellow seeker on the journey of personal growth. Join me as I delve into the stories of gifted healers, guides, and everyday people who have experienced remarkable transformations. Listen in as they share their practical wisdom to enrich your everyday life. And don't forget to hit subscribe and never miss a new episode. Welcome to today's episode of Don't Step on the Bluebells. I'm your host, Amanda Parker, and today we're going to be speaking about what it looks like when you stop waiting for clarity to come to you and you actually start seeing and building your next level from where you are. I'm going to be sharing five tools that I use in my own life and in my business that help me to really envision the future that I'm creating so that it almost feels like I'm already living in that future now, even though I haven't even begun to make that my reality. So the truth is that so many of us are waiting for things to become clear to us. We're waiting for that lightning bolt moment to know exactly what you want, to know exactly what you're building, or we're hoping that someone's gonna show up at our door and tell us, hey, you're the perfect fit for XYZ. I see all of your skills and talents. We'd love to have you on board. And while that's a really beautiful dream, the truth is that life doesn't really work that way. There isn't someone that's gonna come and discover you from the comfort of your home and bring you into the future that you personally are dreaming about. So it's really important to know we don't always have that clarity when we start moving forward. And it's very often up to us to actually take those steps and decide what it is that we want and create it in our lives. So you're not necessarily going to have that lightning bolt moment of knowing exactly what it is that you want, because the truth is that most people have no idea what they want, and they're not able to see that future really clearly. So this is a way to actually help you start to imagine what it is that you want to create in your life. Maybe the vision isn't crystal clear yet, but these tools are definitely going to help you to see much more clearly what you want, and they're gonna help you to start taking steps proactively that you're able to start bringing that future closer and closer to yourself. Action creates clarity in this instance, seeing what that it is that you want, starting to take steps, whatever they may be, as small as they may be, to bring that future closer to you. That's what's actually gonna bring you into that moment of clarity of knowing what you want and what it is that you're creating. So they're able to actually like pre-visualize what it is that they're stepping into before it's ever actually come to fruition. So now I'm gonna walk you through what some of those tools are that I use in my own toolkit. And I'm gonna tell you why this matters to me because throughout my whole life, but especially throughout my business career, like running my own business over the last eight years, I've had so many ideas and dreams and visions and things that I wanted to create. And it has been really difficult at some situations to imagine being in a place that I want to create versus where I am today. Like the gap almost feels too big and I really don't know how to bridge it. I think that's common for a lot of us. We might have these big, lofty goals. You could be working in your corporate career and decide, man, I wish I could start my own business. But the gap feels so big that that can often be paralyzing. For me, what happens is I get so many ideas, I get so excited, there's so many things that I want to bring to life that I get overwhelmed. I don't really know where to begin. And then at some points I can even lose track of why I am doing this in the first place. So when I started my business, it originally was in the leadership development space. I wanted to build this like huge leadership development company, but I just couldn't really imagine what that looked like. And all I had in mind were these businesses that already existed that I could see and point to and be like, okay, this is what that company looks like. This is what a consultancy looks like. So as I was trying to dream up how I wanted to do it differently, I had different elements and different pieces of what that could look like. But it was really difficult to imagine myself as the CEO of a company with, I don't know, 20 or 30 employees doing this work. And because it had been so difficult for me to actually be able to envision it, it became almost impossible for me to be able to bring it to life. It became something that just felt like this really big, grand idea that I couldn't really touch. And so I froze. I didn't know how to bring that idea further. And every time I got bigger client engagements, which I did, I started winning really big engagements to do leadership development with, you know, uh senior leaders and government organizations and different tech companies and uh fast-moving consumer goods, FMCG, if I'm getting that right. And every time I would go into this phase of like almost sabotaging the success that I had created because I didn't really have a map for what that looked like when I got to the end. So I want to help you, because I also want to help myself, uh, really recognize the ways that we can start to settle ourselves into that future state, even if we don't fully believe it yet, or if we haven't seen evidence that it's true yet in our present life. So feel free to try out any of these tools if they resonate. These are my go-to. So this is what I do now in every different stage of my business. We're gonna be talking about new moon wishes, which is something that you can do every single month at the new moon. We're gonna talk about vision boarding, which is a practice that I do at least once a year, but often multiple times a year. We're gonna talk about what journaling can look like when you're thinking about what that future is. We're gonna talk about a future self-letter. So I'll get into the details of that, and visualization, which is one of the most powerful tools I have ever worked with. So let's dive in and start with our new moon wishes. So, what are new moon wishes? Actually, I have a um a free download that you can get from my website. I called it New Moon Intentions to soften the edges of it. But the reality is that every single month at the new moon, we have the opportunity to put out the things that we want to see created in our lives that do not yet exist. So the new moon in astrology is a time for new beginnings. It's like when the moon is completely dark in the sky and it's just gonna start getting a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger every single month. So it's known as a time that you can really put out these wishes or dreams or visions and that they will be heard and magnified. So the truth is you don't have to believe in astrology to follow this practice. I do believe in it. I believe that the full moon is a time for letting go and releasing, the new moon is a time for bringing new energy and creations to life. But even if you do not follow that philosophy or you don't necessarily believe in it, it's a really good practice once a month to sit down and think about what is it that I want to see happen in my life over the next 30 days. So it's become a practice of just being able to tune in and really think through in that moment what would feel amazing to have in my life by next month. And the truth is that I would sit down, I've been doing this practice for, I don't know, 10 or 15 years by now. So I sit down and I write out all these dreams, I write out all these wishes, I have a special new moon journal so that it's all kept in one place, separate from, you know, my business notebooks and whatever else. And then I can actually look back month after month after month and see the things that I was wishing, hoping, dreaming for in the past, and then be able to do a reflection myself of what has already come to fruition, what have I already seen take place in my life? So that's a really affirming experience because so many of us think that things are not really moving in our lives. But the truth is that they are. You just don't know how to slow down enough to see it. So this is really giving you the opportunity to not only take time every single month to see what it is that you want, but it's also giving you a chance to reflect back on what it is that you wanted and you can see what's still true there or what has not yet come to fruition. You can see if it's still important and make different decisions. So highly, highly recommend practicing that exercise. You can get that download on my website. It's completely free. www.amandaparker.co. And let me get that backslash for you so that it's even easier for you to download. So you're gonna do amandaparker.co backslash free dash tools, and you're gonna find the new moon guide right on there. I'll put a link to that in the show notes so you can't miss it. The second tool is vision boarding. You might have done vision boards in the past or you might think they're totally woo and ridiculous. Let me be the first to tell you they're not. They're really amazing. Whenever I create a vision board, especially if I'm doing it by hand and I'm really taking time, I'll buy a stack of magazines because I really enjoy this process. I will cut out all these images that really speak to the life that I want to create. I always give myself a time frame for the vision board. So it might be for the whole year, it might be for the next month, it might be for the next six months, whatever it is. I make a choice about what that's gonna look like so that I'm giving a bit of parameters to what this vision board is helping me to create in my life. And then I go through these magazines and just that process of looking at the images and evaluating what feels true for me. You know, is it like a woman who's standing in like a power suit, standing on a stage? Like, does that feel like something I want in my life, by the way? Yes. I don't know about the power suit, but standing on the stage, absolutely. But I might look at pieces of jewelry that I love or places in nature that just look so incredible that I know I would love to find my way to that beach or to that mountainside and things that I want in my home or the way that I want my home to feel a certain aesthetic or decor. And even just saying this out loud right now, I can really feel that just by giving yourself the chance to even look at those images and dream about this is what I do want, this is what I don't want. You're already helping yourself to narrow down the landscape and envision what your future life looks like. So the act of going through those magazines, of cutting out images, then you get to your board. And, you know, I always have glue sticks on hand. Everyone's boards are going to look different, but I love to fill mine to absolutely every single inch of the board is covered in some kind of image. And even the act of gluing things down and where do they belong and where do they fit on this board also helps me to start thinking in my mind about what it is that I want, what I'm creating, what I'm dreaming of, and where it fits within the context of my life. And it's always interesting to see what doesn't make it on the board, even though I cut it out because I thought, you know what, this would be great. The ultimate decision of what I'm actually gluing down onto that piece of paper is what determines this is what I really want. This is more important to me than that other thing. So it's really a way of helping you to think through what you want, to see it visually, which you then keep in your home. I mean, wherever you want. You can put it on display, you can just keep it by the side of your desk and take a look at it every morning. You can take a picture of it so that you have it in your mind's eye, you know, on your phone. That part is up to you. But the truth is that having a physical representation or images that really represent what you want, the feelings that you want to have, helps you to already start seeing yourself in that context. And listen, it doesn't have to be something that you do with your hands. I've also created plenty of vision boards digitally. So there is a whole process with that too. If you give yourself the time and energy and space to still think about what do I want, what would feel really good, and to place that on your digital board. I use Canva to do this for anyone who's familiar with Canva. But there's also something really nice just about giving yourself spaciousness. If I'm doing a vision board at home by hand with like cutting out and gluing, it'll take me hours. That's at least like a half a day project where I'm getting to really indulge in thinking about what is it that I really want and how can I start to see myself in that role. The next tool is this practice of journaling. And with the journaling, when you're thinking about what you want, I mean, journaling is great anyway. It's a daily practice that I highly recommend. You can journal in many different ways. There's one practice that Julia Cameron has shared that you can actually, while you're journaling, just write, this is what I want more of, this is what I want less of. And that can already be a huge practice of just getting onto the page, the things that you want more in your life and the things you want less in your life. And that I do believe sometimes just comes through us. Like it's so automatic, but we don't often let ourselves think about here's what I want, here's what I don't want, and make it so explicit. But another way to use journaling as you're thinking about the future that you're creating, and maybe this big picture, you know, dream or goal or outcome that you want to bring to life is to write out what your day looks like when you have achieved that goal. So for me, with the example that I gave before, if my goal is to be on stages and speaking, and yes, it is, I'm speaking it out into the room right here, right now. If my goal is to be on stages, then what does that look like? What does that mean? So if I start in my journal by sharing that I'm really excited to be, you know, a motivational speaker, for example, what does a typical day look like in my life? It might be waking up, you know, taking a shower, doing my morning rituals, looking in the mirror, loving the way that my hair looks or my body looks, getting dressed into like my favorite clothes that feel so great on my body, going downstairs, having a delicious breakfast and a cup of coffee, and then sitting down to go through my notes for the speech I'm about to give later that day, feeling calm and confident. So it's really mapping out these granular details of what your day looks like, those small things that seem so insignificant, but they're not. And in that process, I can really even see, as I'm saying that out loud to you right now, I can already get a mental image of myself doing that, sitting at the kitchen table with that coffee and my notes in front of me of everything that I'm gonna be talking about, that feeling in my body where I feel calm and I feel grounded and I'm excited to give that speech, but there's no nervousness about it. There's just this, you know, easiness, this confidence that I know that I can handle that stage. Those are the kind of details that you want to capture and be writing down so that you can really give yourself a clear image of what that day is going to look like. And here's an even possibly more powerful exercise. Once you've written out what does that, you know, perfect ideal day or what does that day look like in the life of the person that you are becoming, where you already have this dream come true. And you think about what could go wrong. Let's say that I'm supposed to give a speech, but my computer dies, or the venue calls me and tells me that they made a mistake and they didn't sell enough tickets. I don't know. Those are just examples. And you give yourself the chance to actually journal about what happens if everything goes wrong. How do I handle it then? And then you're also preparing your mind in a way to be prepared for that worst case scenario because you're already able to see, okay, if all of these things go wrong, how would I handle this? And maybe even then I'm seeing myself, I'm calm, I'm collected, I don't stress out, I trust that everything's happening for a reason. I call my, you know, producer, I tell them what's going on, and we decide just to keep the show going on because the message is still the same. Da-da-da. So you get the idea that you want to be able to see what it looks like in a good scenario, but you also want to give yourself to see what happens when it's not going exactly how you hoped, and to understand how you would handle that situation. Moving on to the next tool, the letter to your future self. So this is a really beautiful exercise where, sorry, it's a letter from your future self. So you want to imagine your future self, the person who has already achieved all the things that you're dreaming of achieving right now. Maybe that's 20 years in the future, maybe that's 10 years in the future. And you want to write a letter to your present self today that is sharing the wisdom of your life and the wisdom of your path and how you got to be in this place that you are today. So, in that letter, you want to share all of the hurdles that you had to overcome, all of the ways that you're super proud of yourself, the way that you carry yourself, what your day is looking like now in this present moment, as that future you who's already achieved all of these things that your present day you is dreaming of. And you want to understand both the sacrifices that maybe you need to make today in your life or the different habits that you need to initiate, maybe the different people that you need to welcome in. So it's giving you a chance to really imagine that future state where you've already achieved all of these things and you're giving advice almost, sharing what that journey has been like to your present-day self, which really helps for you in this moment to see, oh, I see. Actually, if I really want to be, you know, a five-time best-selling author, I'm gonna have to change some things in my life. I'm gonna have to dedicate more time to writing, or I'm gonna have to give myself more space to sit at my desk without distraction or whatever it may be, that you actually have a chance to start seeing what is it gonna take for me to get to that place? Because anything that we want to create in our lives are going to require us to make changes from what we're doing today. So the last tool that I'm gonna share with you today is visualization. This is hands down the most powerful tool that I have ever worked with. And I've seen it work with my clients like incredibly well. Visualization is our ability to see moments in our mind's eye almost as though they're happening in real life. And our minds literally do not know the difference between an actual lived experience or something that we're experiencing in our mind. And I could give you so many stories of this. There's a lot of documentation. You could check out some of Joe Dispens's work that focuses on visualization, where he talks about how you can actually change your physical body and change your health situation based on what it is that you are putting into your mind and able to visualize each and every day. So this is almost like you can use this like a mental rehearsal in a way, where you're actually closing your eyes and you're envisioning. I have to close my eyes while I say this. Are envisioning what it would actually look like to be the person who has achieved all of those things that you want. Now, I have a visualization I created for myself at the beginning of the year, thinking about so many of the dreams that I have, about the house that I want to live in, about what the nature looks like around that house, about my goals for my writing or my speaking, about my goals for the revenue of my business. I can see myself in that house. I can see my husband standing beside me. I'm looking out into the distance, watching the sunrise with a cup of coffee in my hand. I go upstairs, I sit down in my office, I look at my desk, I check my bank account, I can see what those numbers look like. And I'm looking at the book that I'm in the middle of writing. So it is extremely detailed. Even as I tell you the story right now, I can see it crystal clear in my mind's eye. And that's because it is a visualization that I created and have practiced like almost daily for probably a month or two months. So it's something that I could see at one point in time. And then I just continue to see that same image, that same scenario, that same setup to the point where I now believe that's real. Even though I don't see evidence of that in my actual lived experience today, I already know in the back of my mind that this is coming. Just to give you a trick, because this is what worked for me, I thought about that visualization in advance. I thought about all the elements that I wanted to have included in it. And then I wrote out a script and I recorded it in my own voice. So it's about a 10-minute recording where I talk through what the day looks like, these activities that I go through, and all the different elements that I want to make sure that I pay attention to. And then I listen to that recording in my own voice in the morning before I get to work. And the image is so crystal clear. So I can't give you the results of that experiment yet because it hasn't fully come to fruition. But I I do already feel the difference in how I view myself and what I think is possible, and in the way that I take myself and the goals that I have more seriously. So this is a practice that I've used for years in different ways. Um, but this specific sequence of actually recording all of those moments and listening to it daily, that's something that I'm experimenting with now. And as I said, I can already feel more grounded and trusting that that is coming to life, that that is actually true. So these are five incredibly powerful tools that can take you from this place of not really being sure what you want, not really having the clarity on what that looks like or how you can get there to fully owning and honoring those dreams that you have and knowing that when you go through even one of these tools, if you do it on a regular basis, it will help you to reach your next level. Now, my personal philosophy is that you try everything in experiments. So if one of these tools sounded like, okay, I really want to try that, give yourself a set time frame, maybe it's 10 days, just to try and do that one thing every single day to find out what happens. Because you never know until you actually try. And 10 days is a small enough chunk of time that it's easy to commit to because sure, you can show up for about a week and a half to see if you can bring your dreams to life. If it's going well, you can always extend the experiment. If you hate it, it's only 10 days. And then you can stop and try out another one of the practices. So I would love to hear some feedback from you as you listen to this episode to hear what it is that you've tried on your own. And also if you want to share what it is that you are trying, so what commitment that you're making to yourself to begin this process. That would be like, I am so happy to cheer you on because I know how much energy and effort it takes to bring something like that to life. So please do reach out to me. You can reach me on Instagram. My handle is at amandaparker.co. Again, this is all going to be linked in the show notes. So I would love to hear from you to hear what is working, what you're trying, what you're excited about, or what you absolutely hate, all of the above. And I am so happy that we could go through this because I think it's uh in a lot of the coaching conversations that I've been having recently, there's definitely a lot of questions and fear and even anxiety from people who feel like they don't know what they want and they're not really clear on what that future looks like. And I'm here to tell you that no one is. We're all making it up as we go along. And there's tools to help you bring to life the things that you really, really want to see happen for you. So I am rooting for you as always. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Don't Step on the Bluebells. And I'll see you next time. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of Don't Step on the Bluebells. If you enjoyed this conversation, please give the podcast a five star rating wherever you listen. And don't forget to hit subscribe and follow along so you never miss a new episode.