You’re not really "confused" about that big quandary in your life or career, are you?

In writing as in life, we often tell ourselves “I’m stuck” when what we actually are is unwilling to do what’s necessary to meet our own needs.

“How much of my time should I spend on x?”

“How can I get y to do z?”

“Why can’t I z?”

“Why am I so stuck on [project]?”

“What should I do?”

A big part of my job involves helping authors parse through career questions like the above. And a big part of my personal life involves tripping over them myself.

In the past hour alone—THE PAST HOUR ALONE—I have faceplanted into the following life questions, anxieties, and minor to medium-sized executive tasks:

• Why haven’t I executed on paying myself like I know I need to? Mama needs money!

• Why didn’t I log expenses in real time this year like I said I would, so I wouldn’t have to spend 16 hours in weeping spreadsheet agony at tax time? Why am I not getting started on that now?

• How can I coax my kids to do more chores?

• What is wrong with me that I still haven’t finished [half a dozen manuscript reading tasks I’d hoped to finish before Thanksgiving]?

• When am I going to make those candles I said I would send people?

As usual, I’ve been telling myself my problem is that I don’t know The Answers and berating myself for not just coming up with The Answers. I tell myself it’s because I need to do more research or ask someone else who’s wiser than I am. Maybe The Answers are in a book or archival Reddit post from another person who’s been there.

For most of my adult life, I have struggled with anxiety and shame about “not knowing what to do.” And despite the fact that I now know better after many years of study and therapy, I have never quite stopped pretending that I truly don’t know what to do.

That’s a lie. Lack of information or experience is not at all my problem. I’m not a child. This “stuckness” about which I profess to be so anxious is in fact an unwillingness—not always conscious—to acknowledge what my problems actually are: codependency, perfectionism, and to a certain extent neurodivergence.

Do you know what the answer is to literally every problem I’ve listed above? It’s that I’m tired, overbooked, and overstimulated. I need more sleep and downtime than most adults, and I haven’t been getting it. My brain is running on fumes. And I can’t even begin to execute on answers (or even communicate about it!) until I get some sleep.

Or maybe my problem is even more basic than that: it’s that I refuse to take ownership of my own agency, which is ironic considering what I do for a living. I pretend like I don’t have the choice to take care of myself because I don’t want to make that choice. Doing so would involve really growing beyond my codependent and people-pleasing tendencies and upsetting people, and, well, ew.

Let’s talk about how all this applies to you and your problems now.

Those things you’ve been telling yourself you’re stuck on—the edits you “don’t know” how to make, conversations you “don’t know” how to have, priorities you “don’t know” how to order, or boundaries you “don’t know” how to set?

I’m going to guess that the problem is not knowledge-based at all.