Trusting the Process: Why It Actually Works

Recently, I joined a mastermind group that brought tears to my eyes and hope to my soul. It’s a private group for entrepreneurs looking to become more emotionally honest with themselves and with reality in order to move through barriers preventing them from reaching the next level of success.

We’ve only had one meeting and it bowled me over.

Why? Because I recognized in that first session that I’ve been in resistance to “not knowing” my entire life.

The Kid Who Knew Everything

I’ve always been the smart guy who knows.

When I was a little kid my parents used to tell me and everyone else: “Jon knows everything.”

When I was a teenager they said the same thing, albeit in a more accusatory fashion: “Oh, you just think you know everything!”

In the entryway of our tiny 3 bedroom house as a child was a leather bound set of Encyclopedia Britannicas. I consumed these. I was (and am) addicted to information.

The internet came out when I was still young. I found information on a million topics via a 2,400-baud modem connecting into the BBS bulletin board system that ultimately became the internet. Those modem screeches were orgasmic, a gateway to knowledge.

To this day, I consume several books a month, purchase any course I can get my hands on, go to every workshop, watch every motivational or instructional video, and read user’s manuals. When you’re reading the fine-print in user’s manuals and terms of service agreements, you’ve got an obsession.

When Learning Becomes Unhealthy

Here’s the thing: I thought I was being proactive in my growth. And to a certain extent, that obsession with learning and the insatiable curiosity I have about all things has served me very well.

Where it started to get unhealthy was when I HAD to have the information to feel worthy.

I had to know everything about a subject to feel worthy in it. I had to know everything about a situation to feel confident in taking the next step.

Not always, because I’ve also developed a keen intuition and I often utilize it for prescient information about a situation I may not have all the details about. But often enough.

Not knowing? That’s always been a big no-no for me. “You HAVE to know. Keep searching until you find it.” These are things I’ve often told myself.

And they’re valid. It’s fun to search. It’s important to keep going without giving up. But my motivations have been wrong.

I was seeking, not because I was joyously enjoying the hunt. I was seeking because I was desperately trying to avoid “not knowing.”

What Trusting the Process Actually Means

Not knowing feels uncomfortable to me. And so all my life I have resisted it. I have taken actions which took me out of situations where I was having to “not know” too much.

But I didn’t even realize that’s what I was resisting until last week.

I always thought I was resisting something more tangible, like not having the right career. But what I was actually resisting was NOT KNOWING if I had the career of my dreams.

I thought I was resisting a relationship not being right for me. But what I was really resisting was how uncomfortable NOT KNOWING whether the relationship was the one I’ve dreamed about.

I thought I was resisting not having enough money to start the big projects that live in my head. But what I was actually resisting was NOT KNOWING how I would raise the money.

There has been a hidden meta-resistance that has been buffering me from my greatest goals and dreams as a defense mechanism to NOT KNOWING whether they will come true.

Embracing the Unknown

Not knowing is uncomfortable. Until it isn’t.

This past week I’ve just been allowing the feelings of that uncertainty to come to the surface and express within me. I’m processing the uncertainty and accepting it.

And oddly, in that place of accepting not knowing, more pure desires rise to the surface. Clarity presents itself. Simple solutions show up in unexpected ways with perfect timing.

Yeah, I’ve intellectually known this is how it’s supposed to work for quite some time, but this past week I got it at that gut level. I finally embodied it.

And now a new, strange hope bubbles up, not from having the right strategy, but from a place that says, “You’re already on the path. Enjoy it.”

Sure, I’ve experienced this kind of hope before, but it’s deeper this time. It’s a hope and an acceptance that knowing isn’t everything. Not knowing can be the way, too.

And maybe that’s what FAITH actually is: a brilliant acceptance and allowing of the unknown.

So simple.