Learn how courage grows when you step into the unknown, trust your intuition, and begin creating—even when you don’t have all the answers.
Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.
—Raymond Lindquist
Standing at the Edge of The Unknown
Right after the new year in 1999, I called the pediatrician’s office, which was located in the town at the foot of the mountain.
I was due in March and wanted to establish a relationship with the physician who would be caring for my son over the next decade or longer.
The front office staff was incredibly kind and scheduled me right away.
On the day of my appointment, I sat in the waiting area with my legal pad in my lap and watched kids of all ages run in circles, play with blocks, and wave board books. The ones who were not feeling well were curled up against their parents, nearly motionless.
I reviewed the list of questions on my legal pad. Had I thought of everything?
I was soon ushered into the exam room. The doctor joined right behind me and sat on a little black stool on casters. He smiled at me and extended his hand.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
I began by explaining that I had been reading all kinds of parenting books and had several questions. He nodded.
“For example, in one book, the author states that in a certain situation, you should do so and so,” I said. “But this other author suggests something that appears to be the exact opposite. I’m seeing lots of inconsistencies in what these experts recommend, and I was wondering what the correct approach is.”
The doctor looked at me with the most gentle eyes. He rolled his little black stool over to me, as if for moral support before he delivered the blow: “Welcome to parenting, Susie.”
I was horrified.
“Wait, so how do I know what to do if the experts don’t agree?” I asked.
“You consider their advice, and then make your own decision,” he said.
I looked down at my legal pad, black with ink. Thirty minutes prior, I had felt confident that if I knew the answers to the questions that filled the page, I’d be clear and calm when Adam arrived. But now, the problem-solving approach I had used my entire life had been rendered unreliable, and useless in The Unknown.
“How do I know how to make a good decision when I don’t have any experience being a mother?” I asked.
And then, the arrow to my heart: “You will learn as you go,” he said. “You’ll make some good decisions and some bad ones. Eventually, the good ones will outnumber the bad ones.”
The woman who had leaned on learning from experts since childhood was on her own. I would need to fuel my intuition and learn how to fly the parenting plane as I built it.
Twenty-seven years later, I am still seeking advice and continue to want to hear from experts. The more new the territory and The Unknown, the more I seek outside guidance.
I am looking for something beyond “the right thing to do.” I’m looking for assurance just as much as I was when a new mother. I temporarily put aside my own intuition and sit at the feet of those who have walked the path before me.
How Courage Grows in The Unknown
I understand why new writers ask me about the journals and pens and creative rituals I use. How I approach outlining a piece or winnowing down a concept for an essay or chapter.
I understand the frightened look on their faces, fearing they will make a misstep that derails their dreams. They are looking for some tangibles, as the vastness of Everything They Do Not Yet Know is oceanic.
They want buoys of certainty in The Uknown.
So do I.
I have learned that our courage muscle fibers are bulked and strengthened as we find our way into the work. Into our own voice. Into the new project. Into the uncharted territory. Into The Unknown.
We have to circle it like a dog choosing the optimal napping angle in their bed.
Is the door here? Or there?
How do I best enter the Unknown?
If you love research as much as I do, satisfy that need. Read, ponder, ask questions. Interview experts. Compile what you’ve learned into a synthesis and write it all down in your journal.
Now, get moving.
Take your journal and a pen, head outdoors, and walk for a couple of hours.
During the first hour, our brains empty their everyday concerns into the fresh air.
Hour two is when the magic happens. This is when all of the things you have read and heard begin to reduce into a rich sauce of possibility and potential direction. Little packets of insight, crashing together like atoms in a hadron collider.
Now, it’s time to send a tap root into your intuition, hear what you think. Keep walking into The Unknown. As your knowing surfaces, stop and write. Get it all down before you start moving again.
A door will appear. Place your hand on the knobset, turn it, and peek inside.
When we are starting something new, our brains’ default setting is: You don’t know anything. And we’ll believe it.
As a new mom, I was quite sure I knew nothing.
Of course, that wasn’t true.
What was true was that I didn’t know everything.
Knowing everything is not remotely possible for anyone. In my last trimester of pregnancy, though, I desperately wanted that to be true.
We all do—most especially when we are on the threshold of The Unknown.
Whether the stakes are low, medium, or high, we’ll lump it all into one big basket labeled Life & Death—making every choice, every decision one of critical importance.
That just ain’t so.
Most of us are not neurosurgeons, where the stakes are truly Life & Death.
We are artists, creators, entrepreneurs, and visionary leaders on a quest to make stuff that matters. To express what we see and feel and think. To translate the world into something that feels like a shared experience.
To shape lives, the world.
To create and, in turn, create ourselves.
3 Reminders When You’re Facing The Unknown
Here are three reminders to tuck into your rucksack as you head out into The Unknown:
- Unexpected solutions tend to appear as soon as we quit trying to control the outcome.
- The things that “go wrong” can oftentimes be the birthplace of our best creativity, steering us toward previously unseen (and better) solutions/ideas.
- We didn’t come here to keep ourselves between two narrow parallel lines and leave with the Perfect Permanent Record.
What did we come here for?
For the experience of living in our bodies, relishing each of our five senses.
We came here to love unconditionally and with wild, unbridled passion.
We came here to engage our souls in the physical world, discover the edges of what we believe to be true, explore The Unknown, and create ideas with bold desire, translating each into art, beauty, solutions, solace.
That means a lot of well-intentioned moves and decisions as we love, create, and live.
And, invariably, it means getting it wrong. A lot.
Which is to say: it means being alive.
To step into the work with open hands instead of clenched fists. To let curiosity lead where certainty cannot. To trust that every misstep presses a new contour into the map we are drawing with our days.
So make the thing. Follow the flicker of an idea before it has words. Let wonder and The Unknown interrupt your plans. Let the broken pieces teach you new shapes.
And when you lose your way—as every maker, every lover, every soul inevitably does—remember: You haven’t made an irreparable mistake.
You are in the middle of the great, unruly, breathtaking act of becoming.
