Here’s the thing: no one knows anything for sure.
Last week I reconnected with a friend—let’s call her Lottie—someone I haven’t talked to in a while but think about often because she’s so very cool and I like how she thinks. She does change management for work, so I was curious: how is she handling all of this? The change in the world, in small-agency life, in life in general. It’s a LOT.
I’ve talked with so many people this past month, in person and virtually, and everyone is experiencing the same things: rapid transformation, wild amounts of change. Most of us have been through hard seasons before, but this one feels different. Like, categorically different.
Lottie and I went back and forth, trading life and work updates, and eventually landed on the same realization: nobody knows what’s going on. Some of us, depending on our levels of awareness and connection, can feel a big change coming. But no one can name it for sure.
Because no one knows! Not just you, everyone you know doesn’t know! So then what? How do you even operate in vast uncertainty?
Which instinct just kicked in for you?
Freeze: I need to KNOW, and since I can’t know, I’m going to stall out until I do.
Flight: Uh, I need a distraction, never to think this way again.
Fight: Let me gather all the evidence to prove you wrong.
Fuck it: Nothing is real, everything is a lie, nothing matters, time to self-destruct.
I’ve done all of these. Recently.
When my brain gets like this, when I’m minutes away from irrevocably burning down my whole life, I remember that I have a way out: I think about Anna in Frozen 2.
I’m not kidding. Have you seen it? If not, go watch it and come back.
There’s a pivotal moment where Anna is at rock bottom—literally, she’s alone in a dark, rocky cave, having just witnessed a traumatic death while, once again, trying to do the right thing and save everyone. And everyone she loves is gone. No one knows where she is, and neither does she.
Anyone in a purpose-driven business can identify with that feeling. We’ve all been there.
I was there last week. Despite 25+ years of experience in my field and 22 years at LimeRed, I hit a wall where I felt like I knew nothing, could do nothing, and everything I touched turned to shit. It was rough.
Fifteen years ago, I might have blown up my life, moved, and started over. But now I have things keeping me here: family, a house, elected responsibilities, people I love, a bathroom that’s 95% done, to name a few.
I remembered Anna. And what she did in that moment, the only thing you actually can do:
The Next Right Thing. (There’s a song about this, of course. Here are the lyrics.)
Not the next project. Not the next email or meeting. Literally, the next physical thing:
- Take a breath
- Look away from the screen
- Walk to the kitchen
- Eat something easy that’s good for you
- Drink a full glass of water
- Walk toward the door
- Open it
- Go outside
What Anna does in that moment is take one step toward the cave exit. That’s it.
When everything feels overwhelming, the first move is the smallest, most immediate, most right thing in front of you. Each step gets a little easier. And when it doesn’t, you start over and do the next right thing.
You get back into your body, find the thing it needs, and operate in the now.
Here’s what I know: feel the depth of your feelings. Don’t try to think your way out of them. Those feelings need to move through your body — not around it. You go through them, not away from them.
If you’re in your dark cave right now:
Look for the light. Breathe. Take one step toward it.
It will get brighter with each step. And when you’re back outside with a little more perspective, you’ll remember: the light and the dark are both part of being human. One can’t exist without the other.
You need both to grow.