(Refinement, Diffusion, and the Quiet Reason Clarity Stays Vague)

Most mornings, I go to my favourite coffee house and order an extra‑hot whatever I feel like that day.

Same counter. Same rhythm. Same barista who knows my order before I’ve finished taking my coat off.

We were chatting the other morning — that particular New Year energy again, where possibility feels abundant and slightly inflated — and she told me her plan.

She’s quitting her job in a couple of months. She’s going to start doing something else.

She’ll figure it out when she gets there.

She said it with confidence. Not bravado — just certainty.

The kind that sounds like courage when you’re saying it out loud, especially when other people are nodding along.

I listened. Asked a few gentle questions.

“What are you planning to do next?”

She paused.

“I don’t know yet. I’ll work it out once I’m free.”

And in that moment, something very familiar landed in my body.

Not fear.

Diffusion.

Like, I could hear the desire, the want, the intention - but no coherance. The dream for change was fizzling out as a drift as the conversation was happening. A common happening when desire has not solidfied into a workable, realistic plan.

When questioned about it nothing can be challenged if nothing is defined.

The problem with this is no solid bones of a plan results in no movement, no change or worse….chaous!

Diffusion keeps a woman feeling open — but never sovereign. Never fully oriented. Never quite her own woman.

Vague doesn’t mean brave

There’s a particular kind of vagueness that gets celebrated in personal development spaces.

It sounds like:

* “I’m trusting the process.”

* “I don’t want to limit myself.”

* “I’ll let it unfold.”

* “I’ll figure it out as I go.”

And sometimes, that is wisdom.

But more often — much more often than we like to admit — it’s something else.

It’s what happens when a woman knows she wants more, but hasn’t yet separated her own desire from everything she’s absorbed about what a good life is supposed to look like.

At this stage, dissatisfaction is clear.

Desire is not.

So the wanting stays abstract. Blurry. Safely non‑committal.

Not because she’s afraid.

But because what she’s reaching for hasn’t fully become hers yet.

When “more” is a reaction, not a direction

Most women don’t arrive at “I want more” because they’re confused.

They arrive there because something no longer fits.

The life works. It functions. It looks fine from the outside. But internally, there’s friction — a sense of being slightly mis‑placed inside your own days.

So the system reaches for more.

More freedom. More meaning. More alignment. More space.

Here’s the part that matters: “more” is often a reaction, not a desire.

It’s a no to the current life — not yet a yes to a specific one.

And when authentic desire isn’t fully accessible yet, the mind does something efficient and understandable.

It borrows.

From culture. From Instagram. From podcasts. From other women who look happy doing something adjacent.

So desire starts wearing borrowed language:

* “I want freedom” (defined as not having a boss)

* “I want purpose” (defined as monetising meaning)

* “I want creativity” (but only if it’s productive)

* “I want alignment” (as an aesthetic, not an embodiment)

None of this is wrong.

It’s just second‑hand.

And second‑hand desire can’t sharpen. It can only stay vague.

Second-hand desire is definitely not worth giving up the day job for.

The difference between openness and diffusion

This is the distinction most people never make.

Openness has a centre.

Diffusion doesn’t.

Openness feels grounded, even when the path isn’t fully visible. There’s an internal orientation — a quiet this way — even if the details are still forming.

Diffusion feels expansive on the surface and hollow underneath. Everything is possible, which means nothing is specific. There’s motion, but no direction.

And the nervous system cannot organise around that.

So instead of clarity expanding over time, it collapses under pressure.

Why leaving doesn’t create clarity

This is where I gently — and lovingly — disagree with a lot of the “take the leap” rhetoric.

Leaving a job does not automatically create clarity.

Space does not organise itself just because you’ve created it.

If the identity underneath hasn’t shifted, all you’ve done is remove the structure that was holding things together. And the system will scramble to replace it.

Often with:

* financial stress

* urgency

* smaller, less aligned work

* or a quiet return to what you were trying to escape

Not because you failed.

But because clarity doesn’t come from absence.

It comes from refinement.

Refinement is not narrowing — it’s removing distortion

Refinement is not about choosing faster or committing harder.

It’s not about boxing yourself in.

It’s subtractive.

It’s the quiet, sometimes uncomfortable process of removing what isn’t yours until what is can finally be heard without static.

In my work, we don’t ask:

“What could you do?”

We ask:

“What keeps showing up that isn’t true anymore?”

As borrowed narratives fall away, something precise begins to surface.

Not loud. Not impressive.

But unmistakably settling.

What clarity actually feels like

Clarity doesn’t feel like excitement.

It feels like relief.

Clients often say, “I thought clarity would feel motivating. Instead, it feels relaxing. Grounding.”

That’s how you know it’s real.

It doesn’t inflate you.

It settles you.

And from that place, action becomes simpler — not because the path is guaranteed, but because the signal is clean.

Why “I’ll figure it out” keeps you waiting

“I’ll figure it out” sounds like trust.

But when it’s coming from diffusion, it quietly postpones authorship.

It keeps life in a holding pattern. It delays commitment to what’s actually true. It waits for clarity to arrive instead of refining toward it.

And the cost isn’t dramatic failure.

It’s delay.

Years of almost. Months of circling. A life that looks open — but never quite moves.

The cost isn’t collapse.

It’s a slow dissociation from your own direction.