If you’re feeling stuck at a crossroads, imagine a 3rd path.
Many of my students and my friends come to me with hard decisions, feeling the existential dread, asking “Which should I pick? Which is better?”
- Stick it out with my horrible advisor while I cry everyday or face getting deported?
- Take this amazing 7-figure offer to work on something I don’t care about or keep searching for something more fulfilling while suffering impostor syndrome?
- Take money from this shark of an investor now, or wait and risk my company?
(Bear with me on the privilege of the valley)
No matter the problem, I’d argue that this framing is incomplete. It’s never two options, especially when you’re convinced it is.
There’s always a 3rd option.
First, you have to tell yourself that there’s a 3rd option out there, even if it’s a crazy outlandish one. Once you start opening your mind to crazy outlandish options, you’ll discover two things.
- There are a ton of options! Some sound reasonable, better even than the original two. Significantly better.
- You’ll discover why this is such a difficult decision for you. Sifting through the many options will start to show how you feel about the trade-offs, in a more nuanced way that you’d otherwise overlook when feeling stuck between two options.
The answer might not lie in the 3rd option, but the 100th option you dream up. Knowing a 3rd option exists changes your framing from one of stress to one of creative focus. It gets your creative juices flowing. Doing this with friends can help!
So when you feel the stress building from a black-and-white binary decision: remember, you’re not thinking of the 3rd option. And as a result, you’re not thinking about the nth option. So, wild as they might begin, start imagining your 3rd option.