What to do when you don't know what to do.

I'm not good with change. I'm like a cat, like that--I've never been good with change. I think it's because I have such a hard time maintaining balance that when something happens that knocks that balance, it's too easy to just topple all the way over, and lose track of my whole life. I'm in the processor moving. I've never had to be the one totally in control of stuff before, and while I intellectually understand that I need to learn to be active and in charge, that I can't just spend my whole life waiting on someone to do stuff for me, I really don't like it. Here's what's not really a secret, because I feel like I talk about it all the time: I'm almost dysfunctionally right-brained. This is great for when I have to write a novel* or when I have to develop a method for being inspired all the time**, but it means that things that require a left-brain have always been rough on me, and my coping mechanisms aren't always all that effective. Things have to make sense to me the way they make sense to me, and that means, sometimes, a long way around. For instance. It took me almost two weeks to get the moving crate because 1) I had to spend a few days getting my head around the idea, 2) I had to also spend those days researching so that I had a foundation of basic understanding to work from and to ask the right questions from, and 3) because I had to take a day or two off in the middle because of panic attacks after the first one had to be cancelled and I was back at square one. This is maybe not that sharp an example, but it feels like one: I couldn't have done the scheduling without taking a while to get my brain to accept that I needed to do this thing in a specific order and I needed to get these specific bits of information lined up and integrated, and I needed to know what I was doing before I could even think of just calling strangers out of the blue. And along the way, I had a lot of self-defensive daydreaming, sleeping, and worrying. And I think I may have decided to design and patent furniture that negates the need for packing. So here's what I've learned: - if you're an introvert, being dropped I to a situation where you have to be in control and have to handle a lot of stressful things is going to really suck. - if you don't know something, you need to figure out what it is you don't know, and get some of that info into you head, so you can know. - being an adult is something that needs a whole lot of work on how it's done. And the big answer to the question of what you should do when you don't know what to do? Action. Whatever action you are capable of doing. For me, it's researching, getting to know what I don't know so that I can then go and do what I need to do. Maybe for you, it's just setting out and doing, and learnig along the way. But either way, do it, and all doing is of the same value once you've gotten stuff done. So long as you get stuff done. How do you decide what your next step is when you've run off the rails and don't have a plan? *Which I am doing. Check out my writing blog at http://herdingthedragon.blogspot.com to hear more about it! **Which I'm also doing, based on a really scary teaching module that I actually really liked thinking about. I'm in brainstorming stages now, and sometime after the move, I'm going to start work on an ebook.