What To Do When You Don’t Know What You Want: Finding Clarity in the In-Between
- Robyn Milham
- Mar 30
- 6 min read
An honest guide to confusion, ambivalence, and the hidden phase that often comes after feeling stuck.
“I thought once I got unstuck, I would feel clear.”
But sometimes that is not what happens.
Sometimes, after the hardest part of your journey, after the grief, the upheaval, the internal work, and the slow climb out of a difficult season, you don’t arrive in clarity.
You arrive in confusion.
Not because nothing has changed.
But because so much has changed that the old answers no longer fit.
As a Life Coach Johannesburg practitioner and through Online Life Coaching South Africa, this is something I see often in clients.
“I don’t know what I want anymore.”
“I thought I’d feel better by now.”
“I’m not where I was, but I also don’t know what comes next.”
And I understand that deeply, because I have lived it too.
The part no one talks about after feeling stuck
There is a phase of change that is much quieter than crisis, but in some ways just as difficult.
It is the phase where the things that once gave you joy no longer do.
Where the life that once fit no longer fits.
Where parts of you still miss your old life — but when you imagine going back, you know something important:
you don’t fit into the old version of yourself anymore.
I reached that point myself.
I had gone through some of the roughest years of my life. I had changed. I was different. At first, I thought I wanted my old life back. I thought I wanted to feel like “me” again.
But slowly, I realised something deeper:
I didn’t want my old life back.
I wanted relief. I wanted certainty. I wanted to stop feeling so unanchored.
Because the truth was, I had outgrown parts of the old me — and that left me standing in a strange emotional space where I couldn’t quite move backward, but I couldn’t yet move forward either.
That was deeply confusing.
I remember sitting with friends, wanting so badly to feel fully there, wanting to laugh in that old easy way — but something in me was absent. I could smile. I could be present. But the real belly laugh, the sense of spontaneous aliveness, felt out of reach.
And underneath that was a painful question:
If I don’t want the old life anymore… then what do I want?
Ambivalence is not failure — it is often part of change
This is where many people become hard on themselves.
“I’ve done the work.”
“I should be feeling better by now.”
“Why am I still so undecided?”
But ambivalence is not a sign that you are failing.
In motivational interviewing, ambivalence is treated as a normal part of the change process — not as proof that something is wrong with you. PositivePsychology.com describes motivational interviewing as an evidence-based approach that helps people explore ambivalence, enhance motivation, and support autonomy for change.
That matters, because once you understand ambivalence properly, you stop treating it like weakness.
You start seeing it for what it is:
a sign that something meaningful is shifting.
Why clarity can feel harder after change
We often assume that clarity should come immediately after a breakthrough.
But real change does not usually work like that.
The process of change is often slow, steady, and identity-deep. You may have left behind a feeling stuck season, but that does not mean your new preferences, desires, or direction are instantly obvious.
At this point in the journey, it is very common to feel that one chapter has ended before the next one has fully formed.
Martha Beck’s official The Change Cycle describes change as a framework with four “Squares.” In Square Two — “Dreaming and Scheming” — she says people begin to catch glimpses of what they are becoming and are encouraged to let themselves daydream while a clearer picture of desire forms.
That can be reassuring, because it reminds us that clarity is often developmental. It grows.
You are no longer entirely stuck. But you are also not yet fully clear.
And that in-between can feel almost like paralysis.
The paradox of choice: why more options do not always create more clarity
We live in a world saturated with choice.
Choice in careers. Choice in relationships. Choice in wellness paths, identities, lifestyles, locations, and possibilities.
On paper, that sounds freeing.
But often, it is not.
The Decision Lab explains The Paradox of Choice as the idea that the more options we have, the less satisfied we can feel with our decisions, because more choice increases cognitive effort, overwhelm, and regret. Its article on Choice Overload Bias adds that too many options can delay decision-making, increase decision fatigue, reduce confidence, and leave people frustrated with either a default choice or no choice at all.
That is especially relevant when you are already changing internally.
Because when your identity is shifting, the question is not only:
Which option should I choose?
It is often:
Who am I now — and what actually fits me?
And that is a much harder question to answer.
When the old joys no longer work
One of the most destabilising parts of transition is when old joys stop working.
Not because they were wrong. Not because your old life was bad. But because you have changed.
That can create guilt.
“Why doesn’t this make me happy anymore?”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Why can’t I just enjoy what I used to?”
But this is often not a problem to fix.
It is information.
Sometimes, the loss of old joy is not a sign that you are broken.
It is a sign that your inner world is reorganising itself.
Greater Good suggests that being unsure can support learning, better decision-making, and healthier adaptation when we stay curious instead of forcing fast certainty.
That is important, because maybe you are not failing to feel clear.
Maybe you are standing at the point where your life is asking for a new level of honesty.
You may not need a decision yet — you may need to listen
When people feel unclear, they often rush to fix it.
They try to decide quickly.
They research endlessly.
They pressure themselves to know.
But uncertainty is not always the enemy.
Greater Good argues that uncertainty can broaden attention, improve learning, and support better decision-making when we stay open and curious. Its article on getting comfortable with uncertainty and change also argues that mental agility and psychological flexibility help people adapt when routines and certainty are disrupted.
This matters because many people do not need more pressure when they feel unclear.
They need more permission.
Permission to ask:
What feels true now?
What no longer fits?
What am I grieving?
What have I outgrown?
What feels quietly alive, even if I cannot explain it yet?
How to find clarity and what to do when you don't know what you want
Not by forcing an answer.
But by paying attention.
Clarity often begins in smaller ways than we expect:
noticing what drains you
noticing what softens you
noticing what feels heavy now
noticing what still feels alive
noticing which choices create expansion, and which create contraction
If you are in this season, try this:
1. Stop asking only “What do I want?”
Sometimes that question is too big.
Try asking:
What do I no longer want?
What no longer feels like me?
What am I pretending still fits?
2. Separate guilt from truth
Just because you “should” feel better does not mean you do.
Your emotional timeline is not a failure.
3. Let clarity come through experience
You may not think your way into clarity.
You may need to live your way into it.
4. Allow the process to be slow
Change is often steadier than it is dramatic.
5. Seek support
Because confusion becomes much easier to navigate when someone helps you hear yourself more clearly.
How coaching helps in this phase
This is one of the most powerful reasons people seek coaching.
Not because they are lazy. Not because they are incapable.
But because they are in a life transitions season where their internal compass feels harder to hear.
Through Online Life Coaching South Africa, I often work with people in exactly this stage:
no longer fully stuck
no longer fully certain
trying to understand what comes next
Coaching can help create the conditions for clarity by offering:
a reflective space
structure without pressure
questions that go deeper than surface goals
support in untangling noise from truth
It is not about forcing a flashy answer.
It is about helping you hear the quieter one.
Final thought
If you do not know what you want right now, it does not mean you are lost forever.
It may simply mean that the old map has expired.
And if that is true, then perhaps this season is not asking you to panic.
Perhaps it is asking you to pause.
To listen more carefully.
To let the next version of your life reveal itself with honesty, not force.
Because clarity is not always immediate.
But it can still be real.
And sometimes the most courageous thing you can do is not to rush into certainty—
but to stay present long enough to discover what is actually true now.
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