Rewrite the Script · Direction and the next step
When the Script No Longer Fits
Changing careers, changing seasons, and the pressure leaders feel to have the answer. On clarity that arrives in pieces, and why the next faithful step is usually enough.
There have been plenty of seasons in my life when I did not know what came next.
I’ve changed careers. I’ve stepped into leadership roles that stretched me. I’ve built businesses, changed directions, watched opportunities open and close, and more than once found myself looking at something I thought was going to be part of my future and realizing it wasn’t.
For someone who has spent much of her life leading, teaching, coaching, solving problems, and helping other people figure things out, there is an uncomfortable truth in admitting:
Sometimes I don’t know either.
I think leaders can put enormous pressure on ourselves to have the answer. We’re accustomed to being the person someone else comes to. We make decisions, find solutions, develop plans, encourage people, and keep things moving.
Then life changes.
Suddenly, we’re the one asking, Now what?
And I’ve learned that those seasons don’t necessarily mean something has gone wrong. Sometimes the script we’ve been living simply doesn’t fit the season we’re entering.
You Don’t Have to Have It Figured Out
There’s a sentence on my coaching website that has become increasingly personal to me:
You don’t have to have it figured out before we talk. That’s usually why we talk.
It isn’t on there because it sounded like good marketing copy. This wording is there because I know what it feels like to need that kind of conversation myself.
This year especially has been filled with change. I lost my mom at the beginning of the year. Business directions changed. Things I had invested time, energy, and hope into did not unfold the way I expected. I had to release some things, rethink others, and keep moving even when I couldn’t quite see where all the pieces were leading.
One of the things my mom said to me before she died has stayed with me:
“Don’t give up on your coaching. You are a difference maker.”
I’ve thought about those words many times.
Because there were moments when giving up would have been easier than continuing to ask God, What are You doing with all of this?
I wanted clarity. Preferably the kind that comes with a detailed plan, a timeline, and maybe a few arrows pointing toward the next destination.
That isn’t how it came.
Clarity Came in Pieces
Clarity came through conversations. It came through closed doors and unexpected opportunities. It came through things I had been doing for years that suddenly looked different when I saw them together.
I thought about my years in education. I thought about leadership, coaching, business, ministry, training, speaking, and the many different rooms I’ve been privileged to walk into.
For a long time, I had felt that I was supposed to develop leaders for the front line; people who could lead well while walking closely with God.
But I think I made the assignment more complicated than it needed to be.
Was I supposed to focus on ministry? Business? Coaching? Leadership? Churches? Organizations?
Then something finally became very clear to me through the eyes of my web designer:
Church on Sunday. Boardroom on Monday.
The room could change without the assignment changing.
I didn’t need one version of myself for church and another version for business. I didn’t have several disconnected assignments competing with one another.
There was a thread running through all of it.
Help people grow. Develop leaders. Ask good questions. Help people recognize what God has placed in them and find the clarity and courage to take the next step.
The script started making sense.
Maybe You’re in a Season of Change
Sometimes you know something is shifting before you know what the new thing is.
You may be stepping into a new season, letting go of an old one, or realizing that what worked before no longer fits. That can be exciting, but it can also be unsettling because we naturally want to know what comes next before we release what we already know.
I’ve done that too.
We tell ourselves, I should have this figured out by now. Or, I just need to make a decision and move on.
But sometimes the better question isn’t, “Why don’t I have this figured out?”
It’s “What is this season showing me that I couldn’t see before?”
That is a very different conversation.
Maybe You’re in a Season of Leadership
Leadership has its own kind of pressure because people expect leaders to know.
When you’re carrying responsibility, making decisions, developing people, solving problems, and trying to lead in a way that reflects your faith, values, and integrity, it can be difficult to find a place where you don’t have to be “the leader” for a minute.
I’ve discovered that leaders need that place too.
We need somewhere we can say, Here’s what I’m seeing. Here’s what’s bothering me. Here’s what I’m considering. What am I missing?
That isn’t someone making the decision for us.
It’s having a place to think.
And sometimes one good question can uncover something that another ten hours of thinking about it alone never would.
Maybe that’s why questions before suggestions has become such an important part of how I coach and lead.
Maybe You’re in a Season of Purpose
This may be the season I understand most personally.
There have been times when I knew God was doing something before I knew exactly what He was doing.
I could sense movement. I could see pieces. I could feel that something was changing, but I couldn’t yet see the whole picture.
I used to think clarity meant knowing the plan.
I don’t anymore.
Sometimes clarity is simply knowing the next faithful step.
Isaiah 30:21 has become meaningful to me because of that picture: “This is the way; walk in it.”
Walk.
Not understand every mile before you begin. Not know how every piece will come together. Not wait until every question has been answered.
Walk in the direction God is showing you now.
I’m learning that sometimes the assignment becomes clearer while we’re moving.
So What Does a Coach Actually Do?
This is where my own experiences have shaped the way I think about coaching.
I don’t believe my job is to hand someone my script for their life.
Actually, it’s almost the opposite.
Coaching creates room to examine the script you’re already living from.
I should be further along.
I’m supposed to have the answers.
It’s too late to change direction.
If God called me to it, I should already know how to do it.
I can’t move until I know exactly where this is going.
Those scripts influence our decisions more than we sometimes realize.
A good coaching conversation gives us room to bring them into the open. We can look at what is true, what is assumption, what still belongs in this season, and what may need to be rewritten.
Sometimes I help someone see a pattern they’re too close to recognize. Sometimes we sort through competing priorities. Sometimes I ask a question that leads to another question and eventually to an answer.
Sometimes we develop a very practical plan.
And sometimes the most important thing that happens is that all the noise gets quiet enough for someone to recognize what they already sense God has been saying.
That is why I love this work.
Coaching Has Changed for Me Too
The way I coach today isn’t exactly the way I coached years ago.
Earlier in my coaching journey, I probably thought more about strategies, goals, plans, and helping someone get from point A to point B. Those things still matter. I’m practical by nature, and at some point we need to actually do something with what we discover.
But I understand something now that I didn’t understand as deeply then.
The goal isn’t to make someone’s life look like mine.
It’s to help them become clear about theirs.
What has God entrusted to you? What belongs to you in this season? What are you carrying that no longer belongs? Where are you hesitating because you think you need the entire plan before taking the next step?
Those are different questions.
And better questions often lead to better decisions.
Rewrite the Script This Week
Think about the season you’re in right now. Maybe it’s primarily a season of change, leadership, or purpose. Maybe, like mine has been at times, it’s a little bit of all three.
Give yourself some quiet space and consider these three questions:
- What is changing in my life that I may be resisting because I don’t know what comes next?
- What story have I been telling myself about what I “should” already know or have figured out?
- If I didn’t need the whole plan today, what might the next faithful step be?
Then pray about it. Sit with it. Write about it. Talk with someone you trust.
You may discover that you aren’t as lost as you thought.
Maybe you’re simply between an old script and a new one.
I’ve been there.
And I’ve learned that God can use the closed doors, the unexpected turns, the conversations, the losses, the years that seemed disconnected, and even the seasons that didn’t make sense while we were living them.
Looking back, I can see a thread through so much of my own story that I could not see while I was in the middle of it.
I’m still walking it out.
Maybe that’s part of the point.
You don’t have to have it figured out before we talk. That’s usually why we talk.
If you’re in a season of change, leadership, or purpose and could use a place to sort through what comes next, I’d love to have that conversation with you.
Clarity. Confidence. Direction.
Church on Sunday. Boardroom on Monday.
Book a Complimentary Connection Call