When someone comes to me for life coaching, they're usually trying to get somewhere. A career change. A relationship decision. A clearer sense of purpose. Recovery from loss. A life that feels more aligned with who they actually are.

Whatever we're trying to accomplish—wherever we're trying to get to—I describe it the same way: we're trying to reach high ground on a shifting landscape while encased in fog.

The Fog

The fog hides what's actually out there right now. The path between where we are and where we want to be is obscured. We don't know what obstacles currently lie ahead, what opportunities exist that we haven't discovered, what resources are available, or what others around us are actually thinking and feeling.

The fog may even be hiding higher ground nearby—something we'd be happier with than the peak we've set our sights on, if only we could see it.

This is not a problem to be solved. It's the nature of being human. We can't see everything that exists in the present moment. No amount of planning, analysis, or preparation eliminates the fog entirely. It thins in places, thickens in others, and never fully lifts.

The Shifting Landscape

While we're trying to navigate through fog, the ground beneath us is also changing. Externally: the job market shifts, relationships evolve, opportunities appear and disappear, health changes, the world throws curveballs. Internally: our values clarify, our energy fluctuates, old wounds surface, new capacities emerge, what mattered intensely last year matters less now. We can't know how we'll feel six months from now, or how the people in our lives will respond to our choices.

The landscape we're navigating today is not the same landscape we mapped yesterday. The path that seemed clear last month may have become impassable. A route we dismissed may have opened up.

This, too, is not a malfunction. It's how life works. Everything is in motion—outside us and within us. The Buddhist tradition calls this anicca: impermanence. Not as a philosophy to believe in, but as a simple observation about how things are.

What This Means for the Journey

If we can't see clearly and the ground keeps shifting, what can we actually do?

We can choose a direction, start walking, pay attention, and adapt.

That's it. That's the whole method. It sounds almost disappointingly simple, but it contains everything.

Choose a direction. Not a destination we're certain of, but a direction that feels meaningful given what we know now. In life coaching, we spend real time on this—clarifying values, articulating what matters, distinguishing between what we think we should want and what we actually want. The direction doesn't have to be perfect. It has to be chosen.

Start walking. Insight without action is just rumination. At some point, you have to move. Small steps count. The step doesn't have to be the right step—it has to be a step you can learn from.

Pay attention. As you move, the fog shifts. Some things become clearer. You notice how the terrain actually feels underfoot, which may be different from how you imagined it. You notice your own responses—what energizes you, what drains you, what you're avoiding. You notice the landscape changing around you. This noticing is not passive; it's a skill that improves with practice.

Adapt. Based on what you notice, you adjust. Maybe the direction is right but the path needs to change. Maybe what you thought was high ground isn't what you're actually looking for. Maybe something better has come into view. Adaptation isn't failure—it's the only intelligent response to new information.

This Isn't Doing It Wrong

Here's what I want to emphasize: adapting as you go isn't a sign that you planned poorly or lack commitment. It's the only thing available to us. Anyone who claims otherwise is either selling something or hasn't paid attention to how their own life actually unfolded.

The fog and the shifting landscape mean that no one gets to know the full path in advance. We are all navigating with incomplete information through conditions that keep changing. This is not a problem with your life. This is what life is.

Once you really accept this—not as a discouraging limitation but as the actual nature of the situation—something shifts. The pressure to "figure it all out" before you start begins to release. The shame of having to change course dissolves. The anxiety of uncertainty, while it doesn't disappear, becomes more workable. You're not failing at a game everyone else has mastered. You're playing the same game everyone is playing, with the same constraints.

My Role as Your Coach

When you work with me, I'm walking the journey alongside you. Not ahead of you, not above you, not directing you from some vantage point where the fog has lifted. I'm in it with you, helping you navigate.

My job is to help you choose a direction—to clarify what actually matters to you, not what you've been told should matter. To help you peer through the fog by asking questions that sharpen your seeing, noticing things you might have missed. To help you notice when the landscape is shifting—internal changes you might be minimizing, external changes you might be resisting. To help you adapt without abandoning your values or losing your sense of direction.

But here's what I hold as fundamental: it's not my journey. It's yours.

I don't know what's right for you. I have perspectives, frameworks, questions, observations. I've walked alongside enough people to recognize some patterns. I know something about how the fog works and how landscapes shift. But I don't have access to some truth about your life that you lack. When I'm at my best, I'm striving to see the landscape through your eyes—and by doing this, helping you see it more clearly yourself.

You have to own the journey. The choices are yours. The steps are yours. The adaptation is yours. If I'm doing this well, you become more capable of navigating on your own, not more dependent on me.

Finding Meaning Along the Way

There's one more implication of the fog and the shifting landscape that matters: we can't defer fulfillment until we reach the high ground.

If the path is uncertain and the destination may change, then we can't stake everything on arrival. We have to find ways to find meaning, purpose, and even joy in the walking itself—not as a consolation prize, but as the actual substance of a life.

This doesn't mean pretending the journey is easy when it's hard. It means recognizing that the journey is your life, not a prelude to your life. The relationships you build along the way matter. The growth that happens through difficulty matters. The moments of presence and connection, even in fog, matter.

The existential psychotherapist Irvin Yalom wrote about how humans are "meaning-seeking creatures thrown into a universe that has no meaning." We have to create meaning—it isn't handed to us. The fog and the shifting landscape are part of this condition. But so is our capacity to choose directions that matter to us, to connect with others who are navigating their own journeys, to find purpose not despite the uncertainty but within it.

An Invitation

If this way of seeing resonates with you—if you're trying to reach high ground and you've felt the fog and noticed the landscape shifting—I'd be glad to walk alongside you for a while.

I can't promise you'll reach any particular destination. No one can honestly promise that. But I can promise to take your journey seriously, to bring everything I know about how to navigate uncertainty, and to respect that the life being lived is yours.

The fog is real. The landscape shifts. And still, there's adventure in the walking.

Michael Kelly is a life coach and licensed psilocybin facilitator based in Portland, Oregon. His approach draws on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Buddhist contemplative practice, existential philosophy, and complexity science.