10. Moving Forward Without Certainty

Waiting for certainty can keep us standing still for much longer than we realise.

The pressure to make the right choice can make decisions feel heavier, riskier and more permanent than they actually are. 

In this episode, Patricia Ezechie explores how to move forward when you don’t feel certain, and how choice often shows up in much smaller, quieter ways than we expect: through experimentation, self-trust, and learning as we go. 

In this episode:

• Why choice doesn’t always feel clear
• Why fear of "getting it wrong" can keep us stuck 
• How small choices shape your direction over time
• What it means to choose without certainty
• Why experimentation matters more than perfect decisions 

A reflection for you: 

What small choice might you approach as an experiment this week? 

If this conversation resonated

Subscribe to Proactive Empowered Careers so you don’t miss what comes next.

Future episodes will explore practical ways to think differently about careers, identity, growth, and reinvention.

 Read the accompanying article here 

Transcript

I’m Patricia Ezechie, and this is Proactive Empowered Careers. A space for thinking about careers differently, not as something separate from who you are, but as an expression of you and the life you want to live.

Hello everyone, and welcome back.

Before we get into today’s episode, I just want to pause for a moment, because this is Episode 10, and that feels important to acknowledge.

What we’ve been doing over the last few episodes hasn’t been random. We’ve been building and exploring something together, step by step. Starting with learning to listen to yourself, then trusting what you hear, exploring permission, questioning what success actually feels like, and noticing what fits and what doesn’t.

You might have started to notice something shifting in yourself. A sort of opening up, I hope. A sense that things aren’t as fixed as you might once have thought. That your life and your career aren’t separate from you, or set paths to follow, but something that can change. Something that can evolve.

As I’ve been creating these podcasts, I’ve also been aware that this hasn’t just been a process for you. It has been a process for me too. Finding my voice, saying what I actually think, sharing ideas that matter to me, and everything that comes with that, the uncertainty, the exposure, the moments where I’ve wondered how something might be received.

So there’s been a kind of parallel process happening here. What we’re exploring together is also something I’m moving through myself in real time.

In a way, that makes this next part feel even more relevant.

Because once you can hear yourself, and once you’re beginning to trust that, and once you’re beginning to allow yourself to want what you want, and you’re starting to recognise what fits and what doesn’t, things begin to feel more open. You begin to see more possibility.

And when you begin to see more possibility, you’re faced with something else.

Choice.

And choice is what we’re going to be talking about today.

So what do we mean by choice?

It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? We make choices all the time, choices about what to say, what to do, what to prioritise, what to move towards, or what to move away from.

But the kind of choice we’re talking about here is different.

We’re talking about the choice that happens when something becomes clear to you. When you’ve noticed what fits and what doesn’t. When something no longer feels quite right, or when something else starts to feel more right.

Because when we’re in that place, you have to decide. Do you want to move towards it? Do you want to move away from it? Or do you want to stay exactly where you are?

In that moment, you are making a choice, whether it feels like it or not.

This is where choice starts to feel more complicated, because we really only want to make decisions when we feel certain. When we’re sure. When we feel we’ve worked it all out and we know it’s the right thing to do.

But in reality, that rarely happens.

Most choices are made when we’re not certain. When we don’t know. When we don’t have all the information. When we can’t predict the outcome. When we don’t know exactly how it will turn out.

That is the part that makes choice feel uncomfortable.

The reality of life is that we are rarely certain.

We like certainty. We want to get things right. We want to avoid regret. We want to feel sure.

So when we meet these choices, we hesitate. We worry about getting it wrong. We worry about what might happen if we make the wrong choice. We wonder whether this is really the right thing for us to do.

And when that happens, it can feel easier to hold back. To stay where you are until things feel clearer.

But for so many decisions in life, clarity doesn’t come first. It comes after. After you’ve made the decision, after you’ve made the move, after you’ve chosen and experienced the consequences of that choice.

Even when we feel certain, we are often just making the best decision we can with what we know at that moment.

Once we recognise that choice isn’t based on certainty, we are left with something else, the responsibility for the choices we make.

And that is when we begin to worry.

We worry about getting it wrong. We worry about regret. We worry about choosing something that later turns out not to be what we thought it would be.

In that moment, it’s easy to feel the pressure of trying to make the right decision, when in reality there often isn’t one clear right decision.

There isn’t always complete information. There isn’t absolute certainty.

So when we take all of that into account, the challenge is not about making the perfect decision. It is about being willing to make a decision with what you know now, and then trusting that you can deal with whatever comes next.

Interestingly, the more you do that, the easier it becomes.

The easier it becomes, the stronger you get at choosing. Because with every choice you make, you are building that muscle. You are increasing your resilience and your self-belief.

With every decision, whether it works out exactly as you hoped or not, you are learning, adjusting, refining, and moving.

As I’m saying this, I’m thinking particularly about people who say they are indecisive.

And it makes sense, for all the reasons we’ve already explored, uncertainty, fear, the pressure to get it right.

But the irony is that we never have all the information. What we are really trying to develop is the resilience to make a decision, learn from it, adjust, refine, and then go again.

Over time, what once felt fearful or difficult begins to feel more natural, and more empowering.

What makes this even more interesting is that choice is not just about what you do. It’s also about who you believe you are.

The version of you you’ve come to know. The version that feels familiar. The one you’ve been living from, often without even realising it.

So when you are faced with a different choice, one that stretches you or takes you outside what feels familiar, you are asking yourself more than what do I want to do?

You are also asking, is this me? Am I the kind of person who would do this? What does it mean if I choose this?

So choosing is much more complicated than a simple either-or.

Sometimes the choice in front of you doesn’t match who you understand yourself to be, or who other people have come to expect you to be.

So it is not just about the decision itself. It is about what that decision might change. How you see yourself, how others might see you, what feels familiar, and what no longer does.

That can make even a simple choice feel much bigger than it really is.

When you start to see all of that, it makes perfect sense that we don’t always leap into a choice.

Avoiding a choice often isn’t about indecision. It is about uncertainty, responsibility, fear of getting it wrong, the impact it might have, and the way it might change how we see ourselves or how others see us.

So we hesitate.

That hesitation can show up in lots of ways. You might tell yourself it’s not the right time. That you need more clarity, more information, more certainty. You might procrastinate, go round and round in circles, think about the same decision again and again without moving.

Or you might stay exactly where you are, even when something in you knows it no longer feels right.

From the outside, that can look like indecision.

But on the inside, you are trying to manage all of those competing thoughts and feelings at the same time. You are trying to get to a place where the choice feels safe.

This is where we can make it more manageable.

Choice doesn’t only exist in the big life-defining moments. It is also there in small, everyday moments, in how you respond, in what you say yes to, in what you say no to, in what you allow, and in what you question.

Small choices over time begin to shape your direction.

You might choose to say what you actually think in a conversation. To pause instead of automatically agreeing. To acknowledge that something doesn’t quite feel right. To follow a sense of curiosity, even if you don’t fully understand it yet.

Those small choices matter because they build something.

They build awareness. They build confidence. They build trust in yourself.

And more than anything else, they create movement.

You are no longer only hesitating or staying stuck. You are beginning to move, even if you are not yet fully clear where you are going.

Those small choices, repeated over time, are what begin to shape where you go next.

When we bring this back to careers, this starts to matter in a very real way.

Careers can often feel like something that happens to us, shaped by opportunity, by circumstance, by what’s available, by what’s expected, and by other people.

Of course, all of those things do play a role.

But there is also choice.

In the roles you stay in or leave. In the environments you move towards or away from. In the expectations you accept or begin to question. In the direction you follow or decide to rethink.

Those choices do not always feel obvious or easy, but they are there.

And this is where something more fundamental comes into play.

Even when things feel insurmountable or impossible, you still have choices. Because you have more agency than you might initially realise.

Even in the smallest of ways, through the possibilities you begin to notice and the choices you begin to make.

This is something else I’d really like you to hold on to from today’s conversation, because it matters.

Choice is not something we do once. It is something we come back to over and over again.

Life changes. You change. Circumstances shift. Priorities evolve.

So the choices you make now do not have to define you forever.

They do not have to be perfect. They do not have to solve everything. They just have to help you move.

As we explored earlier, it is not about one big, definitive decision. It is about a series of smaller ones. Noticing, responding, adjusting, and then choosing again.

That starts to change how choice feels.

It becomes less about getting it right and more about staying connected to what feels right to you as you change.

As we bring this episode to a close, I want to leave you with something to reflect on this week.

Where in your life are you facing a choice?

It does not have to be a big one. It might be something small, but something you have been putting off, or something you keep circling around.

As you think about that, notice what comes up.

What feels clear? What feels uncertain? What feels uncomfortable? What are you telling yourself about that choice? And what might be possible if you did not wait to feel completely certain?

Just notice.

Because choice isn’t about having all the answers.

It is about being willing to move with what you know, to respond, to adjust, and to choose again.

Over time, that is what begins to create direction. Not all at once, not perfectly, but gradually, step by step.

In the next episode, we’re going to explore something that sits closely alongside choice, commitment, what it means to stay with something, what it means to follow through, and how to keep moving even when things feel uncertain.

Until then, take the very best care of yourself.

This has been Proactive Empowered Careers. If today’s episode resonated, subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss what comes next.

And remember, your career isn’t separate from who you are. It’s an expression of you and the life you want to live.