Finding Clarity: When You Don’t Know What to Do, Serve and Trust

by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

The best way to find REAL clarity is to take REAL action by serving and trusting.

Life in the world can have a funny way of making us feel ‘stuck’:

Maybe it’s a career crossroads, a personal dilemma, or a just a deep sense of foreboding and uncertainty about the future as we try and move into it through the Void – whatever it is, we’ve all had those moments when we simply don’t know what to do and so we kinda…freeze up (humans are gonna human, I guess).

When this ‘stuckness’ lands on our plate, our natural tendency is to try and THINK our way through the confusion, but the more we think, the more clouded things become – especially because it’s usually our ‘thinking’ that got us in this situation in the first place.

The truth is that clarity doesn’t come from overthinking or trying to control every outcome because clarity isn’t a product of FORCING life but a product of responding to life’s FLOW.

Instead, clarity starts to dawn on us when we start to shift our focus away from ourselves and learn to take REAL ACTION – even when we don’t have all the answers.

This essentially involves living to embody two simple principles:

Service
Trust

When you can live to serve others and trust the process of life as it moves towards wholeness, clarity emerges – not because everything falls into place perfectly, but because you stop focusing on your ego’s fear-driven ‘stuff’ and start moving in alignment with a deeper sense of purpose as you grow more REAL and help the world to become a little more real too.

This article will help you find CLARITY by breaking down how and why serving and trusting are the ultimate tools for finding real clarity in your life.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

Serving: Getting Out of Your Own Head

The Ego thrives on self-concern and self-obsession – it’s constantly asking questions like, “What do I want?” “What’s the right choice for ME?” or “Am I good enough?“

This leads to confusion, because the ego is UNREAL (and you can only get clarity from REALITY in truth) so it just creates series of mental loops that keeps us stuck in the hamster wheel of the “what’s in it for me?” or “what about me?” mentality.

The more you focus on yourself, the more trapped you become in uncertainty because you’re constantly filtering everything through unanswered questions about yourself and avoiding what’s actually going on in life as it unfolds around you.

Serving others is a powerful antidote to this:

When you focus on contributing to others – whether it’s offering your time, your expertise, your energy, or simply just LISTENING to them – then you move away from the noise of ego and start seeing things with fresh eyes as you tap into life’s pure signal again (without the distortion and resistance that comes from ego).

How Service Brings Clarity

Serving levels you up and brings a sense of real power and energy because it helps you to step outside the whirlpool of self-doubt and uncertainty.

This is because – by focusing on meeting the needs of others (without being needy or co-dependent) – you shift your attention from your own internal chaos to the real, tangible world. In doing so, you allow clarity to emerge naturally, and you’ll find that you start acting from WHOLENESS instead of fragmentation.

This is when life starts to feel REAL:

You stop overthinking because serving gives you a practical, real-world task to focus on – instead of overanalysing and freezing up in being ‘stuck’ (which is basically just holding back and hesitating because of ego), you take action and get results that connect you to the world around you (i.e. the action you take is REAL).
You discover your strengths because as you GIVE (whereas the Ego just tries to TAKE), you realise your own strengths, virtues, and qualities in ways that abstract contemplation and theorising never can – you learn what you’re truly good at by doing it and having a real world impact, not by theorising or wondering who you might be (because you actually SHOW UP and find out instead).
You build real confidence because true confidence doesn’t come from endless introspection or seeking validation – it comes from making a difference in the world by taking ACTION. The more you serve, the clearer your path becomes because you begin to see yourself as part of something bigger than your own concerns and you find your real place in the world with the people that support you (and who you also support in return).

There’s a paradox of REAL GROWTH here but it’s very true and worth remembering:

You can’t grow into the ‘best’ version of yourself by only focusing on yourself.

Clarity doesn’t come from thinking about yourself constantly – it comes from putting your energy into something real and being REAL is about embracing wholeness and interdependence instead of the illusion that we’re all separate and independent.

When you serve, you put yourself into this reality instead of hovering on the threshold of it because your ego doesn’t want you to live a REAL LIFE (because then you won’t ‘need’ the Ego anymore).

Trust: Flowing Instead of Forcing

One of the most powerful ways to find clarity is to TRUST:

Trusting life is not the same as passively waiting for things to unfold; it’s about taking action in the direction of your purpose while releasing the need to control everything.

Or, as I like to say these days:

Do your best (trust yourself) and let go of the rest (trust life).

(See my book ‘Trust’ which is all about this).

The reason we often feel uncertain is because we’re trying to force life to bend to our will due to the (mis)perceived needs of our Ego and the underlying emotional ‘stuff’ that drives it (shame, guilt, and/or trauma).

When we’re filtering everything through the Ego and the need to sustain it (instead of growing real and reconfiguring our relationship with it by putting it in the backseat and our REALNESS in the driving seat), we want to control every outcome, obsess over every detail, and predict every step of the journey.

This just leads to friction and misery because, when we try to do this, we’re only met with frustration and confusion, because life is inherently uncertain and we can’t FORCE it – we can only work with it and then flow towards our vision by taking the REAL ACTION that we can and letting go of whatever is beyond our control.

Trust brings clarity because it allows us to flow with life, rather than forcing our way through it; flow always leads to next CLEAR step, but force always eventually CLOUDS the way.

How Trust Brings Clarity

When you trust, you act without attachment to outcomes and stay in the PROCESS of living your life instead of just conceptualising or thinking your way through it.

Trust helps you to live as a REAL human being because it shows you how to:

Do your best and let go of the rest: Instead of fixating on how things should turn out based on what you think (and that filter of ego), you focus on showing up with your best effort and finding out the truth (which means you accept life and build with it, not against it).
Stop waiting for the perfect time: The need for ‘perfect’ conditions often keeps us stuck in indecision but learning to TRUST means taking imperfect action anyway, knowing that life will reveal the next steps as you move. This gets us out of Ego and into the only place where things can happen anyway: REAL life.
Embrace uncertainty as part of the process: Trust gives you the freedom to move forward despite the unknown, knowing that clarity often emerges only after action. ‘Certainty’ is an illusion anyway in many cases and so relying on it before we get started means that whatever we end up doing will be doomed to being unreal.

Just for the record, trusting doesn’t mean being passive or ‘letting go of control’ in a way that causes you to do nothing (unless you choose to do nothing for strategic reason – like biding your time or waiting for opportunities to arise); it means releasing the need to control everything because this is impossible.

When you stop forcing, you allow life’s natural flow to guide you and, as you move forward in this flow, clarity begins to show up – often in ways you never expected.

The Powerful Combination: Serving and Trusting

You may be wondering: How does serving and trusting lead to clarity? Here’s the thing: Both principles help you get out of your own head and into real, purposeful action.

When you serve, you get out of the loop of self-absorption and overthinking. You stop obsessing over your own problems and start solving others’. When you trust, you stop forcing and start flowing with the natural rhythm of life.

Together, these two practices help you:

Stop getting stuck in analysis paralysis. By focusing on others and trusting the process, you get moving, and movement creates clarity.
Develop confidence in your path. The more you serve and trust, the more you realise that you’re capable of navigating life’s uncertainties with grace and direction.
See the bigger picture. When you focus less on yourself and more on the impact you can have, you begin to see your place in the world, your purpose, and the answers to your biggest questions.

How to Serve and Trust for Clarity: Practical Steps

To help you get started, here are some simple actions you can take today to integrate the serve and trust principles into your life and grow real.

These practices will help you get out of your head, start moving, and, most importantly, gain real clarity from the momentum you start in your own life:

1. Start Serving Right Now

If you’re stuck, the best thing you can do is shift your focus to helping others – think about how you can contribute, even in small ways:

Can you volunteer your time or skills to someone in need?
Can you offer a kind word or lend a hand to a colleague or friend who needs some encouraging at the moment?
Can you solve a problem in your community, work, or for somebody close to you?

Real Action: Identify one small act of service that you can get started with and go get on with it – start getting out of your head and into action.

2. Trust Your Journey and Act Without F.E.A.R (“False Evidence Appearing Real”).

One of the main reasons people get ‘stuck’ is that they wait for certainty before acting – as we’ve seen, this never really ‘works’ because nothing is really certain in life (except death, of course, and the universal laws).

Instead of waiting for everything to line up perfectly, trust the process and take action:

What is one thing you’ve been putting off because you’re unsure of the outcome?
What would happen if you just did it without waiting for all the answers?
Can you trust yourself to handle whatever arises on the way to where you’re going?

Real Action: Take one small, imperfect action today – trust that it will lead you to the next step, and the next, and the next (because it always will. Check this out for more: The Baby on the Bridge: Trust and Belief in Yourself, the World, and Reality).

3. Remember the Sacred Mantra: “Do Your Best and Let Go of the Rest”

When fear and doubt arise, remind yourself that you can only control your actions by engaging with the PROCESS – not the outcome.

Focus on doing your best in each moment, then release attachment to the result.
Trust that clarity will come with time as you keep taking those obvious steps towards where you’re headed (more REALNESS).

Real Action: Repeat the sacred mantra to yourself as you go about your day: “Do your best and let go of the rest.” See how it changes your approach to challenges by detaching you from overinvesting in outcomes and living your REAL life in the process instead.

Final Thoughts: You Can’t ‘Think’ Your Way to Clarity

Clarity isn’t something that you find by thinking harder or waiting for the ‘right’ answer but something that emerges when you get out of your head and start serving others while trusting the unfolding process of growing more real.

When you serve and trust, you’ll see that clarity comes naturally because you’ll start to move with purpose, build real confidence, and see answers that were always ‘there’, waiting to be uncovered (your REALNESS is received, not achieved).

In short, the more you focus on real action and let go of trying to control everything, the more the path ahead will reveal itself.

Stay real out there,

Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace is a book about learning to return to your realness by cultivating trust in yourself and trust in life.

It contains practical exercises and dedicated meditations (Transformational Bridges) to take you DEEP in knowing yourself and life.

This book will answer many of the questions you have growing REAL and flowing towards wholeness. It covers everything from shame to addiction to the unconscious mind and synchronicity (and way more).

Download EGO/SHADOW/TRUST - a free guide to transformation that will walk you through the vital stages of Awareness, Acceptance, and Action with practical strategies to implement right away.

Join the 7-Day Bare Ass Minimum (BAM) Challenge and start to implement foundational health habits and a powerful life vision only a week from now.

Real Always Works

The best way to find REAL clarity is to take REAL action by serving and trusting.