The other day a friend came for dinner and said something that provided the seed for this newsletter. Talking about his long daily commute, he said "I got so sick of having the rearview mirror in my sight-line that I took it out and now have a glorious, unobstructed windshield and I can see everything ahead of me." How many of us spend more time checking out the rearview mirror than the path that lies ahead? How many of us make our future decisions based on how we did things before? What might you do differently if there were no way to look back—if you could really make your next decision unhampered by the mistakes, habits and assumptions of yesterday?

There's a great old saying: If you always do what you've always done, then you'll always get what you've always gotten. Makes sense, doesn't it? When we are ready to create decisive change in our lives, we must move out from the soft cushy underbelly of the known and into the open, uncharted and sometimes prickly territory of risk and experimentation. If you're having trouble moving out of your current orbit, one of the ways to invite your life out of its comfort zone is to take a look at the situation you're in and write down a list of possible actions you might take from this spot. You might even do this exercise with a friend or two who know your situation—the more minds the better. First, invite everyone to think sanely, logically, responsibly and generate a list of five or ten solid ideas that even a mother would love. These are the ideas the 'make sense' as a next step. If you're on a job hunt, a sensible idea might be: 'call Tom because he knows someone in your field and ask for an introduction.' Another solid 'next step' kind of idea might be: 'commit to contact 10 new people each week.' Don't judge the ideas as 'good', 'challenging', 'smart' or anything else. Just set the list aside for now. The second part of this exercise is where the fun starts. Ask yourself and your friends to unleash their brains and toss ideas into the ring that are wild, ungainly, scary, shocking, risky and truly unexpected. All ideas are good and writing them down doesn't mean you have to do them! Again, don't edit, don't censor, don't laugh at an idea as ridiculous or patently absurd. Write all ideas down impartially and then take a look. One or two of these nutty nuggets might be just the thing to release you from the gravitational pull of your current situation. Now you have two lists—a smart and reasonable one, and one that probably gets your heart racing. Here's my suggestion: choose your next action from among the choices that shock and unsettle you. This is likely to be where the opportunity for growth and decisive change resides. Every time I do this exercise with clients I'm always surprised that the radical ideas often have more power and resonance with my clients than the logical and sane ones. It may be that Sally's job hunt will be best served not by more networking, but by a solo weekend retreat into the wilderness with a commitment to journal 3 hours a day about what she wants and what obstacles real or imagined are standing in her way. I once had a client who was having a terrible problem at work with a colleague. The problem seemed intractable and he was seriously thinking of quitting his job. In our coaching session with did the brainstorming exercise I've just shared and my client came up with the zany idea of baking his colleague a homemade loaf of bread and bringing it in to her on Monday with a lovely card that said: "let's break bread together." This gesture, which was so unexpected, off-the-wall and friendly, broke the tension. Munching on homemade bread slathered with butter and raspberry jam, these two found a way to connect and began to work through their interpersonal gridlock. We are often very frightened of extreme decisions and uncharted waters. Every cell in our body suggests that the known journey will land us home safely, and we want so desperately to believe this myth. But if we're honest with ourselves, the truth is that taking the known path -- the safe path, the path that makes sense if we make tomorrow's decisions based on yesterday's -- is often a poor match for what we are trying to create in our lives and what we know we deserve. If you've been on a job hunt for a while and your dance card is still empty, get radical! Break your mold! If you're forty years old and sick and tired of a life on the financial edge, then it's likely that the only way to break the cycle will be a decisive choice that looks like nothing you'll see looking through your rearview mirror. So on a metaphoric level, do what my friend did on a literal one: take the rearview mirror off your life and consider a next step that doesn't rely on the one before. Invite choices that surprise you. You'll know you're in the arena where a breakthrough is possible when the choices you are really considering contain enough risk and originality that they get your heart pumping. Dale Carnegie once said "the sure thing" boat never gets very far from shore. Ain't it the truth!