Where to find clarity
My name is Phoebe, and I'm addicted to clarity
Thank you for your wonderful responses to last week’s post about my model for designing an extraordinary life.
As you may remember, the first step in this model is clarity, and I want to spend a bit of time talking specifically about this today.
I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again:
You can choose clarity.
It was a revelation when I realised that you can actually decide not to be confused. You can choose not to spend your days wondering where you should live or what job you should do or what degree you should study or what restaurant you should go to tonight.
You can just decide.
My name is Phoebe, and I’m a Clarity Addict
I recently shared a story on my Instagram about realising that I did not actually want to be a professional writer – a dream I’d had for about 15 years at that point. You can read it here:
But because I’m not short on examples, here’s another story of me panicking because I didn’t have perfect clarity on something.
My partner and I hit some milestones this year that mean we can now work from anywhere in Australia (even New Zealand!). We are both effectively location independent.
My brain instantly turned this into a whirlwind of overwhelm about what our next steps should be. Where exactly should we move? What exactly can we afford? What would make most sense for our business? Why is there not a way to search realestate.com.au that doesn’t require you to already know where you want to live?
After a bit of panic and a lot of calming conversations with my partner who wondered why we suddenly had to move cities, I realised this was simply not something I needed to be confused by.
Here’s what’s ridiculous: I enjoy where I currently live! I know it’s not my forever house, and it may not be my forever city, but I don’t need to be overwhelmed about that.
So I’ve chosen to decide to live here until I don’t want to anymore. That moment hasn’t presented itself yet, and I don’t actually need to pre-empt it. Why do I always need to pre-empt stress and panic and confusion with… stress, panic and confusion?!
(Honestly, I should just get choose clarity tattooed on my wrist… but… what script? Which artist? Which wrist? What if I change my mind in 2.759 years?)
OK, sorry, this is me just talking to myself now.
All this is to invite you to think about where in your life you may be adding confusion and overwhelm where it’s not actually needed.
I’m learning to be comfortable with the fact that things might change
I have always felt the pull to do more than one thing. But I’ve also always felt the pull to know exactly what I “should” be doing for the rest of my life.
Am I alone in this?
Every single year, my yearly school book recorded a different response to “what I want to be when I grow up”. A chef, a lawyer, a journalist, a forensic scientist (why did everyone in the ‘90s want to be a forensic scientist, btw?)…
For a long time I thought this was because I lacked focus or drive or the ability to see something all the way through.
But now I think I am just so driven by curiosity, it’s impossible to blend everything up into one project or role. So I need to juggle a few different things at a time to feel fulfilled.
I am what I call a classic Pie Charter.
Some projects may be 70% of my pie chart, and some might be 5% – but without that 5%, I wouldn’t enjoy the 70% as much. I need them both.
I now have a visual reference in my head for how I spend my time and make my money; I just think of my Pie Chart and what’s currently on it.
When I start to feel bored, I think of what I can swap out, or maybe how I can scale a 70% project back to a 50% project, and add in a fulfilling 20% project somewhere else.
When I feel overwhelmed, it’s almost always because I am working at more than 100% of my Pie Chart. Something extra has snuck in, or a project has ballooned out of proportion.
And even if this is making you itchy and sounds like your version of hell, my point is this:
This structure allows me to keep one eye on my long list of potential future projects while also staying focused on my current ones.
I have decided that I do not need to do everything at once. My Pie Chart is an ever evolving framework for what I’m working on.
This clarity of how to structure my time and focus has probably been the single greatest revelation in my career. (Yeah, 2025 has been quite a year!)
How my thinking on clarity has shifted
As you can see, my addiction to clarity still rears its head in ugly ways sometimes and it’s a constant exercise in self-management to keep my brain on track.
But where I am sitting with the idea of clarity now is this: decide, gain momentum, change if needed.
There is no such thing as a waste of time, as long as you prioritise momentum. Every single step is a step in the right direction. Every single step is a step towards clarity.
My mum has always told me that the only decision that’s actually irreversible is to have children – on everything else, you can change your mind.
What it’s taken me a long time to realise is that to change your mind, you first have to make up your mind.
I spent my 20s thinking that my dream life would suddenly present itself to me – I would suddenly know exactly what job I should do, exactly where I should live, exactly who I should be with (and exactly what that relationship should look like).
But your extraordinary life requires more of you – it requires exploration, challenging assumptions, and just sheer time on this planet.
And in the meantime, you can choose to be clear on what that means for you right now.
There’s no specific tool to share this week, except for my free archetypes quiz. I believe strongly that having a framework for your career is a fundamental step towards clarity everywhere else:
This Week’s Life Curriculum
Bring in your extraordinary life, inch by inch, day by day.
DO | The rest of the year is probably going to be crazy. Block an afternoon out in your calendar now and book into a delicious boujie restaurant for a longgg lunch with no other plans that afternoon or evening. Even if no one else can join you, this is still going to be a highlight of December, I promise.
MAKE | My partner has been travelling this week, so I made one of my childhood comfort foods that he hates: tuna crunchy top (ie. tuna mornay with a cornflakes crumb). I’m ashamed to tell you that, but it’s maybe not the most embarrassing thing I’ve revealed in this newsletter today?
For a tuna dish with slightly more sophistication, look no further than the Salade Niçoise. I’m craving crunchy, rich salads at the moment (eg. Caesar, niçoise, waldorf). I blame the humidity.
LISTEN | I have had Jon Batiste’s Beethoven Blues on repeat for the last week.
As a fellow addict to clarity I really resonated with this! I do love the awareness that you're making a choice even if things are staying the same - sometimes it's too easy to feel all things must change if you're going to progress. There's strength in stability as well; and recognising when is the right time to mix things up.