“Stumped” – When Life Feels Like a Gordian Knot

In leadership and in life, there are moments when challenges seem impossible to untangle.

• A team member’s struggles quietly erode group morale.

• Family dynamics become clouded with illness, anxiety, or depression.

• Uncertainty about the future: waiting on client’s orders, jobs, or medical tests—stretches our patience thin.

• Even in our own homes, we sometimes care deeply yet feel unable to connect.

The weight of uncertainty can be crushing, and we may conclude: “I’m stumped.”

But as I reminded someone recently, “It’s not dark. It’s only murky.” Murkiness still means there is light.

Even in a state of waiting, hesitation, or small faltering steps, there is action. Reflection and restraint are not inaction. They are part of the rhythm of finding a way forward.

For leaders, this means recognizing that the process itself has value:

• Thinking is already doing.

• Waiting is also preparing.

• Holding space for solutions is part of creating them.

• And ultimately, action must be taken, fervently and deliberately, to move forward.

We are not stumped. We are in the process. And that process may be exactly where breakthroughs are born.

Photo: There is light. Cut through the knot.