Around 2001, a school principal asked me to teach Communication Arts to high school students. She wanted the class to focus more specifically on creative writing because the students were struggling to express themselves.
I said yes.
Then the uncertainty arrived.
I was not trained to teach creative writing. I had read William Zinsser’s On Writing Well, but understanding what good writing looked like did not mean I knew how to produce it consistently. I was not a native English speaker, my vocabulary felt limited, and now I was expected to teach young people how to write in English.
I could have gone back to the principal and admitted that I was not the right person for the job. That would have protected me from embarrassment, but it would also have left the students with the same problem.
I could have pretended I knew more than I did. I could have collected polished essays, explained grammar, assigned themes, and graded the results. That would have looked like teaching, but it would have repeated the same approach that had already made many students afraid to write.
Or I could accept that I did not know enough and begin learning.
None of the options felt certain.
So I went to the library.
We often wait for a decision that feels safe
When every option seems uncertain, we usually assume we have not thought long enough. We gather more information, imagine more consequences, and try to find the choice that guarantees a good outcome.
But some decisions do not come with guarantees.
You may be considering whether to accept a new role, confront a recurring problem, start a project, leave a familiar situation, or try an approach no one around you has used before. Every option carries a possible loss.
If you move, you may fail.
If you stay, you may miss the opportunity.
If you speak, the conversation may become difficult.
If you remain silent, the problem may grow.
The mind keeps moving between these outcomes because it wants a decision that removes risk. When it cannot find one, it mistakes uncertainty for a command to wait.
But waiting is also a decision.
It protects you from the immediate discomfort of choosing, but it does not freeze the situation. Opportunities close, problems continue, and other people make choices that shape what remains possible for you.
You may not have chosen a direction, but time has continued choosing on your behalf.
I did not decide how to teach the whole course
At the library, I did not find a complete answer to every question I had about creative writing. I did not suddenly become an expert.
I found something smaller.
One of the books discussed freewriting. The instruction was simple: sit down, keep the pen moving, and write whatever comes to mind. Do not stop to correct the grammar. Do not demand a good idea before beginning. Write first and discover what appears.
I could understand that.
More importantly, I could try it.
The following day, I asked the students to prepare a notebook. I told them the exercise would not be graded. Then I asked them to write continuously for three minutes.
“Anything, Sir?” one student asked.
“Anything.”
“What if nothing comes to mind?”
“Then write, ‘Nothing comes to mind.’ Keep writing it until something else appears.”
They looked uncertain.
So did I.
I did not know whether the exercise would work. But the possible damage was small. If the students produced nothing useful after three minutes, I could change the activity the next day.
That mattered.
I did not have to decide how to teach creative writing for the entire year. I needed to decide whether one small experiment was responsible enough to try.
Separate irreversible choices from reversible moves
Not every decision deserves the same amount of hesitation.
Some choices are difficult to reverse. They may involve safety, large financial commitments, legal obligations, or consequences that affect many people. These decisions require careful study, expert advice, and a clear understanding of the risks.
Other choices are experiments.
You can write a draft without publishing it. You can test an idea with five people before offering it to five hundred. You can speak to one customer before building an entire business. You can pilot a new meeting process with one team before changing the whole organization.
The mistake is treating every first move as though it were an irreversible commitment.
A person considering a career change may think the only options are to resign immediately or remain forever. But another move may be available: speak to people in the new field, take one project, or build one relevant skill while keeping the current job.
A manager may believe the only options are to confront an employee publicly or continue tolerating the behavior. A better first move may be one private conversation designed to understand what is happening.
Uncertainty becomes easier to manage when you stop asking, “Which option must I choose forever?” and begin asking, “Which responsible move will teach me something useful?”
Choose the option that creates evidence
The first freewriting exercise created evidence.
Some students stared at the page. Others wrote that nothing came to mind. But after a while, the pens began moving. One thought led to another.
When the three minutes ended, I asked whether anyone wanted to share. The exercise was private, so no one was required to read.
At first, the room remained quiet.
Then one student raised a hand.
The student read a few lines, stopped, and began explaining. The words on the page opened a story that had not been written. Another student volunteered, then another.
They had entered the exercise believing they had no ideas. Three minutes later, they had stories, questions, observations, and something they wanted to say.
That result did not prove that freewriting would solve every writing problem. It gave me enough evidence to continue.
The next day, I tried it again.
Later, I added prompts. The students could follow the prompt, ignore it, or return to an earlier thought. Over time, some of them began writing even when I no longer required it.
The decision became clearer because action had produced information that thought alone could not.
That is what a good first move does.
It does not always solve the problem. It changes what you know about the problem.
Do not ask one decision to answer every future question
When we feel uncertain, we often overload the immediate decision.
If you are considering a new project, you may ask whether it will succeed, whether people will support it, whether you can sustain it for years, and whether it will become the best use of your career.
Those questions may eventually matter. But the first decision may not be capable of answering them.
The students’ first three minutes could not tell me whether they would become excellent writers. They could show me whether writing without judgment helped them begin.
That was enough.
A customer conversation cannot prove that a business will succeed. It can show whether the problem you want to solve is real.
One article cannot prove that you should become an author. It can show whether you have an idea worth developing and whether writing helps you understand it.
One difficult conversation cannot repair an entire culture. It can reveal whether the problem is what you thought it was and whether the other person is willing to work on it.
A decision becomes less frightening when you give it a fair assignment.
Do not ask the first move to prove the whole future. Ask it to produce the evidence needed for the next decision.
Identify what must be true
When every option seems uncertain, it helps to separate what you know from what you are imagining.
You may not know whether the project will succeed. But you may know that the current problem will continue if no one acts.
You may not know whether the conversation will go well. But you may know that silence has already damaged trust.
You may not know whether you can build the complete business. But you may know that one person has a problem you can help solve.
Start with what must be true for the first move to be responsible.
For my classroom experiment, the activity had to be simple enough for the students to understand. It had to be safe enough that students would not be punished for imperfect writing. It had to give them permission to begin without knowing what the finished piece would become.
Freewriting met those conditions.
I did not need certainty that it was the best method. I needed enough confidence that it was a sensible experiment.
There is a difference.
Look for the option that keeps learning alive
Some choices close the door to feedback.
You can keep thinking privately, protecting your idea from criticism. You can postpone the conversation, protecting yourself from an uncomfortable response. You can continue perfecting the plan, protecting it from reality.
But without feedback, your thinking may become more polished without becoming more accurate.
A useful decision keeps learning alive.
It places you close enough to reality to discover what is true, but not so far beyond your capability that one mistake destroys everything.
The students’ notebooks gave us that kind of space. The writing was not graded. Their first sentences did not have to prove anything. They could experiment without turning every mistake into a permanent judgment about their intelligence.
That is how we can design decisions under uncertainty.
Reduce the size of the commitment. Protect people from serious harm. Create a clear way to observe what happens. Then move close enough to the real work to learn.
Your values still have to choose
Evidence matters, but not every decision can be made through experimentation.
Sometimes two options remain uncertain even after careful study. Both are possible. Both carry risks. Both may lead to worthwhile outcomes.
At that point, the question changes.
You stop asking, “Which option is guaranteed to work?”
You ask, “Which option allows me to act according to what matters most?”
One choice may offer more security. Another may create more learning. One may protect your comfort. Another may allow you to serve people who need what you can offer.
There is no formula that can choose your values for you.
When I accepted the teaching assignment, I could not guarantee that I would teach creative writing well. But I believed the students could learn, and I was willing to study, experiment, and improve.
That did not remove uncertainty.
It gave uncertainty a direction.
Set a point for the next decision
A small move should not become an excuse to continue indefinitely without choosing.
Before acting, decide when you will evaluate what happened.
After one week of freewriting, what did the students produce? Did they participate more? Did they become less afraid of the page? What needed to change?
A team testing a new process can review it after two weeks. An entrepreneur can conduct ten customer conversations, then decide whether to build the offer. A professional exploring another field can complete one project and examine what the experience revealed.
This creates movement without demanding blind commitment.
You are not saying, “I will follow this path forever.”
You are saying, “I will move far enough to collect honest evidence, then I will decide again.”
The next decision will not be made from the same place. You will have experience, feedback, and a clearer understanding of the situation.
Movement changes the quality of your choices.
Uncertainty is not always a problem to eliminate
The freewriting exercises eventually taught me more than a technique for helping students write.
They taught me that we sometimes discover the path by entering it.
I did not know exactly how the class would develop. The students did not know what they would write when the timer began. But by moving, we created the information, confidence, and ideas that had been missing.
This is not an argument for recklessness. We should think, prepare, and protect people from avoidable harm.
But after responsible preparation, some uncertainty will remain.
That remaining uncertainty is not always evidence that you need another plan. Sometimes it is simply the condition of doing something that has not happened before.
You cannot study your way into complete certainty about a conversation you have not had, a project you have not tested, or a life you have not lived.
At some point, the next answer belongs to action.
Make the move that improves the next decision
When every option seems uncertain, do not ask which choice can guarantee the final outcome.
Ask which move is responsible, reversible when possible, aligned with what matters, and capable of producing useful evidence.
Then define the move.
Do not “start a new career.” Speak to three people working in the field.
Do not “transform the team.” Address one recurring problem in the next meeting.
Do not “write the book.” Write the first true story.
Do not “build the whole business.” Help one customer and learn what the work requires.
The goal is not to pretend that uncertainty has disappeared. The goal is to stop allowing uncertainty to make every decision for you.
This is part of what I mean by Move First.
You prepare responsibly, choose the smallest honest move, and allow action to reveal what thought alone cannot. The first decision does not have to settle the entire future.
It must help you make the next decision from a better place.
When every option seems uncertain, choose the move that creates the most useful truth.
About Jef Menguin
Jef Menguin is a Filipino motivational speaker, leadership consultant, and creator of Move First. He helps leaders, teams, professionals, and students turn hesitation into meaningful action through memorable stories, practical shifts, and one meaningful move.
Explore his work as a motivational speaker in the Philippines or connect with him on LinkedIn.