How to 'make' Big Life Decisions

You know, the kind where you're standing at a fork in the road, looking at two life paths ahead of you, knowing very well you can only live one and not the other.

In 2014 I had to make my first ever Big Life Decision.

The kind where you're standing at a fork in the road, looking at two life paths ahead of you, knowing very well you can only live one and not the other.

I'd been working in a small energy strategy consultancy in Paris for three years and wanted to move on. I now had two very different job offers in front of me.

The first offer was in an industry I knew nothing about (home improvement retail) and for a company I only knew because I used to visit their stores with my dad when I was a kid. The company was well-loved and I’d had a great experience during the interview. If I took the job, I'd manage a small team and have my very own P&L. The role was hugely different from anything I'd experienced in the consulting world. It felt fun but also professionally risky: I'd either end up learning loads fast or failing hard.

The second offer was in the energy industry, although it was a subset of the industry I didn't know much about. Just like the other job, it was about repairing human-made assets and buildings, but this time the work needed to be done on oil and gas platforms and pipelines that were dozens or hundreds of meters below sea level. I'd start off my work doing market analyses, of which I'd already done loads as a consultant. It felt professionally safe.

The first role was in Paris, where I'd lived for the past 4 years and which felt like home. The second role was in London which I’d felt drawn to for a few years—but the idea of moving there alone far from my family and friends felt scary.

The pay and benefits were similar.

I had 48 hours to make a decision and no idea which offer to go for.

The former felt like going on a risky professional adventure in a safe personal context while the latter felt like going on a huge personal adventure in a safe professional context.

I kept going back and forth between the two.

So I talked to my parents, to friends. I made lists of pros and cons for each option. I'd feel convinced I wanted to become a great team manager and have a career in Paris. Then I'd start dreaming of walking down London’s stunning Regent Street towards Piccadilly Circus.

As the deadline approached, I started panicking because none of the conversations I was having or lists I was making were giving me a clear answer on what direction I should give to my life.

Then the deadline came. I had to decide.

So I picked the Parisian adventure, sent an email to the home improvement retailer accepting the offer, and went to sleep.

I then proceeded to have the most ridiculously difficult night I'd had in a long time. I woke up because I was feeling warm. Then because I was feeling cold. Then because I had a nightmare. Then another one. I lay in bed wide awake for a couple of hours wondering if this is what insomnia felt like.

After a night of tossing and turning I woke up feeling weirdly and wonderfully calm. Somehow I knew I had to move to London.

It was so obvious.

It's like my entire being had oriented itself unconsciously, yet wholeheartedly, onto the London path, and like it had already taken a decisive step in that direction. Paris didn't even feel like an option anymore.

Looking back on that night, it definitely feels like my body had been contorting itself in all possible ways to tell me I'd made the wrong decision. Like it was yelling “WRONG” in a loop, in the only way it could. Ultimately it succeeded in making the 'right' decision obvious to me, thereby doing what the lists of pros and cons hadn't been able to do.

That morning I rescinded my acceptance of the Paris offer, accepted the London offer, and started flat-hunting.

Ten years later I'm still in London.

I've now made a few of those Big Life Decisions.

In 2021 I decided to step away from a senior leadership role at a big company to go on a twelve-month sabbatical in Mexico and Indonesia. In 2023 my partner and I decided to move back to busy London so I could lead a cool work project. In 2024 I decided to leave the financial and psychological safety of employment to try my luck as a free agent.

While those Big Life Decisions never really get easier I do get slightly less surprised by the process now.

I used to think I needed to make the decision. I'd look at the risks sitting on either side, I'd talk to family, I'd reach out to a coach, I'd read posts written by people who'd made similar decisions to see how they'd handled it.

Just like I did in Paris in 2014.

All this is a useful part of the process.

I wouldn't want to pick a life path without having sketched out what I think it might look like. I also wouldn't want to discard a life path just because my fears are preventing me from considering it calmly and objectively.

I now also know that thinking about the decision is only part of the process.

The other part is more nebulous. It’s about letting go of the need to think through and make a decision, and about creating spaciousness around and within you so the decision can emerge on its own instead.

It's when I spent a few days on holiday in the middle of the English countryside that it became obvious to me I had to go on sabbatical.

I was sitting barefoot on the grass watching the trees dancing with the breeze as the sun was rising slowly over the rolling hills. In that moment, and for a few minutes, I felt such a blissful connection with the world around me that I knew I had to re-arrange my life so I could feel that kind of connection more. It's like every single cell of my body was inviting me to take proper time off to explore a different way of being, one that didn't involve attending intense back-to-back meetings every working day from 9 to 5.

I hadn't actively been thinking about whether I should go on sabbatical or not in that moment. Instead it felt like the decision simply emerged out of nowhere after months of actively trying to make the decision, and not succeeding.

We need both parts to make good life decisions.

The intellectual part and the spiritual part. The conscious and the unconscious.

The intellectual part consciously assesses the risks and benefits of both life paths, thereby sketching out the landscape for the decisions we have to make, and the spiritual part slowly and unconsciously uncovers the decision that feels deeply 'right' for us in that landscape.

It's like a dance between those two parts. The decision only becomes obvious after both parts feel like they've had their say.

And just like any dance, the point isn't to reach the end. The more those two parts dance together, the more you learn about the person you want to become through the lens of that big decision.

It's worth letting the music play on for a bit.

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More about sabbaticals: whether you're thinking of going on an extended break from work or you’ve already taken the leap, you are right in the middle of an experience that can transform your life in a truly meaningful way. It’s exciting of course, but it can also feel scary, lonely and a bit overwhelming at times.

I’ve created two playbooks to help you on your journey:

• Thinking of a sabbatical will give you everything you need to consciously decide if going on an extended break from work is the right move for you

• On Sabbatical is a self-paced digital experience with insight, structure and resources to turn your sabbatical into a life-changing experience