The Messy Stuff: What is a ‘Now what?’ moment?
Figuring out how to recognise a 'Now what?' moment, and what to expect next.
2007 was the year I realised the life I was building didn’t fit me anymore.
In my last post, I shared the timeline that showed I was sick, exhausted, and still trying to push through my research degree.
Eventually, I was stopped by an autoimmune disease that took months to recover from.
It was the start of my lifelong journey with chronic illness, and it forced me to stop and reflect.
I could see that I couldn’t keep going on the path I’d started down. And it was my first real experience of a ‘Now what?’ moment.
The heart of a ‘Now what?’ moment is not the disruption itself, but what becomes visible because of it.
In this post, I want to explore what a ‘Now what?’ moment really means: how you can recognise you’re in one, what they reveal, and what often happens next.
Since then, I’ve realised many people have had a similar experience.
They also had a moment of realisation that they needed to change their trajectory, but didn’t know where to start.
Not necessarily triggered by illness.
But they did have that same moment of realisation: “Now what?”
What exactly is that ‘Now what?’ moment? And how do you know that you’re in one?
Let’s explore that.
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You’re following a path that feels like a good fit.
Maybe it even feels like a great fit. You have doubts, but nothing’s perfect, right?
And besides: You’ve invested so much time and energy to get here.
You’re not throwing that away easily. And there’s parts you do enjoy.
Then, there’s some kind of disruption: Illness, burnout. Injury, loss. Redundancy.
Suddenly, you hit the edge of the map.
It’s like you were following a route on a map, even if you didn’t know it. You had certain expectations of what would come next.
But now, all of that isn’t valid. You’ve hit the edge of the map, and you don’t know what to expect.
Sometimes, it doesn’t even look like disruption: Something that looks like success can also bring this feeling:
Reaching the promotion you wanted, only to feel empty.
Launching a project or business and feeling numb, not accomplished.
Finishing a course and feeling exhausted, not proud.
To everyone else, you might seem to be exactly where you should be: from the outside, this looks like success.
What all ‘Now what?’ moments have in common is that on the inside, something feels off.
Underneath, there’s a reckoning:
This can’t be it. This isn’t working anymore.
This is what defines a ‘Now what?’ moment.
‘Now what?’ moments are defined by this revelation. They reveal to you that there is a mismatch. A mismatch between:
Your outer life (what you’re doing, what others see) and
Your inner life (what matters to you, how you want to feel, who you want to be).
This moment cracks open the gap between the life that you’re living and the life that you want.
The one that might be your next ‘good fit.’
One that you can choose to move towards, step by step.
And once you see that gap, it’s hard to un‑see.
I’ve explored the difference between changes that happen in the external world (out there) and those that happen in our internal world (in here, in my mind) before. You can find it in this Lou Reads review of Transitions by William Bridges:
What happens next?
You try to keep going. But you realise you can’t. And you can’t go back, either.
Your usual coping strategies stop working. What used to help you push through, motivate yourself, or justify the path just isn’t enough right now.
You could ignore it. But instead, you start to ask deeper questions.
You begin to see there are more possibilities. It feels disorientating, maybe scary. But there’s also a sense of freedom.
And there may a sense that there are more options than you used to think.
You feel pulled towards something different, something that you can’t name yet.
In that space you (eventually) find a new kind of freedom, and a glimpse of who you could become next.
That’s the heart of a ‘Now what?’ moment: not the disruption itself, but what becomes visible because of it.
And what it invites you to imagine next.
Or, you ignore what it’s telling you and keep pushing for more of the same - or just slightly different.
Coming through a ‘Now what?’ moment can change how you think about yourself.
If you use intention and ‘just enough’ of a plan.
More than that, it can change:
How you see the choices that are truly available to you.
What becomes possible when you make space to really listen to yourself.
It's a new way of orientating. Finding yourself on the map again (or realising you’re ready for a different map altogether).
But it’s hard. Confusing.
There are tools that can help you orient yourself and gather information to find certainty.
Next time, we'll look at what makes these moments so challenging and unique.
Beyond that, we’ll explore what to do when you find yourself at that edge: how to navigate the uncertainty and ask the right questions.
Subscribe to follow the series and explore ‘Now what’ moments together.
What about you? Have you ever had a ‘Now what?’ moment? How did you know you were in one?
If you’re in your own ‘now what’ moment at work or in life, and would like support to navigate it, here’s how I can help. Check out my Design for Life programme and hop on a discovery call to explore where you’re at and if I’m a good fit to help you.