Some people in life know exactly what they want to achieve. What I am sharing here is for the rest of us.

Many of us live in a world that prizes goal-setting, action-taking, clarity and decision-making. People say, “What’s your plan? What’s your goal? Where do you want to be in one year, three years or five?” They say, “Just make a decision” and “You’ve got to be clear. Look, if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re never going to get there.” Though these comments are intended to be helpful, when you’re in a delicate phase of discovery, it actually makes things worse. It’s easy then to start looking around and thinking everyone else has it together, that they’re doing it better. Somehow we start to scramble, and the more we scramble, the more we sink. We either can fall into this compare-and-despair mentality where we’re deflated and depressed, or the opposite. To compensate, we speed up into this hypnosis of hyperactivity, doing more based on the assumption that more is better. And we develop a spree of activity just doing something. Then we try to keep up on what I call the conveyor belt of our day. We think somehow there are these empty boxes, and our job is to fill each box with many activities just to get through the day.

So, how do we get out? How do we live fully? There is a way out. Years ago I studied with the legendary French mime artist, Marcel Marceau. He was this wizened man, gray hair, hunched, but strong in his 70s. He showed us this type of movement, which he called “risque avant,” which means “risk forward.” It was a type of approach to moving that made you feel almost like the sail of a boat — filled with air, weight forward, pulled forward — almost like on a current in the river.

I have come to think of this really as a philosophy for our lives, how we can move forward, heart open, even if we are a little off-balance, heading into the unknown. In each of our lives, there are times when we find ourselves in what I call the “fog of not knowing.” It’s a period of transition when the path or the plan or your project is not clear. This period of not knowing can be uncomfortable. It could be that you are in it because these forces of nature or the world have thrown us into a whole new situation. It could be that you are leading your team into new territory, or you are taking a step outside of your area of expertise. It could be that something has changed in your life due to health or family relationships. It could just be that internally something has shifted, that for whatever reason, you see your life and your activities anew. The internal tectonic plates have changed, and the old ways of thinking will no longer do.

Regardless of how you find yourself in this fog of not knowing, the thing to remember is that this period is fertile. It’s full of promise. If we can learn to meet this void without grasping for the most convenient way out, without panicking, what we find can be beyond our imagination and expectation. Because at the edge of not knowing is the beginning of the extraordinary.

The truth that so few people tell you is that some of the most successful creative endeavors and companies didn’t start with a detailed plan or a goal or a full vision laid out. These great companies and creative endeavors began with a whisper, a glimmer of a thought, which the people then followed, risking forward into the unknown. They figured it out as they went, often through significant periods of self-doubt. So, you are not wrong for not knowing. It is full of potential.

How do we find our way? Well, in each of us is an inner current. It’s this line that goes through everything we do. It’s like an inner line of wisdom. It is in yourselves, it is in your pores, and it motivates you from the inside out. Whether you know it or not, you are constantly expressing this inner current. The key is to learn to pay attention when we are on it. You know you are on it when you are excited or you are engaged, you are activated, you are lit up, you are curious, you are excitedly scared — any of those alive experiences. And you’ll know you are off it when you feel dread or despair, or you feel flat or static.

So, we want to start to pay attention to how we feel. There are moments when you’ll be on course in your life, and, for whatever reason, a force of nature has come, and you are facing a challenge. Those are understandable. But, if day after day you are not feeling lit up, maybe it’s not because there is something wrong with you. Maybe it’s because the path you are on isn’t your path.

How do we find that way again? There are various questions that I ask my clients, and I’ll share one with you today, which is this: What interests you now? Many years ago I took a performance workshop with a person named Remy Charlip. Remy had been the author of some children’s books that my sister and I had grown up reading. But he also was a choreographer, dancer, director and an artist of various sorts. He was multidimensional, multispectrum, if you will, with all of his interests and talents. On the first day of our workshop, 15 of us arrived. We sat in a circle, and Remy said, “Don’t talk about what you’ve done before. Don’t share who you are and your credentials. Just tell us what interests you now.” Remy didn’t want us relying on our egos and our credentials because the fact is that our pasts can hold us back — not just because of our failures but actually because of our successes too. We feel beholden to continue in the track that we’ve been on.

So, when you start from this present moment and say, “What interests me now,” as you are in this fog, it’s extraordinary what will come to you. In those moments, these wisps will flicker across your mind. These lights will glimmer. It’s so important to honor those because they are your hidden genius at work. Your interest, your curiosity and your excitement not only are good enough reasons but are the best reasons to follow something. So often when we see that crimson star, that light that flickers in our view, we’ll have people who say, “Oh, where are you going? Don’t do that. Wait. How are you going to make money?” or “I think that’s been done before. How’s it going to work out? Do you have experience in that?” And it’s all the doubts and cries of voices that keep us from going forward.

But if you can risk forward and step into that unknown, even if you don’t know where it will take you, what happens so often is that it’s not just the crimson star that’s calling you. It’s that when you step forward, you say, “Oh,” and you can now see the track, this path that you could not have seen before because it was blocked from back there. So, you step forward, you risk forward, and you say, “Now I know where I’m meant to go.” So, follow that crimson star.

It happens in all areas of business. I have a client who is a strategic planning professor. He loves comedy. He opens his class with a Top 10, David Letterman-style, where he does a comedy set list. Kids cannot wait for the class to start. I have another client who is a health care executive. She happens to love modern art, and, whenever she talks to explain a new concept, she shares the idea using analogies from modern art. How about the financial advisor who loves motorcycles and parks his Ducati motorcycle inside his office? Prospects and clients come and say, “Wow, he’s broken the stereotypical advisor before the meeting has begun.” Or how about the manager who loves poetry, who opens her Monday morning meetings with a line of poetry? People love it. It humanizes the culture, and they look forward to the week. And last, how about the administrative assistant who loves Academy Awards week? Every year during Academy Awards week, she rolls out a red carpet by her desk.

What can you do? Your opposites are what make you unique. They are your opportunity. Don’t hide that full spectrum. Risk forward, and put them together in unique ways.

Victoria Labalme is a creative entrepreneur, international speaker and performance strategist to leading organizations around the world. With more than two decades as a global performer, Labalme has been featured on Broadway, in the HBO show “Sex & The City” and in dozens of TV commercials. Using principles from performing arts to transform people's performance in business and life, Labalme’s proprietary systems and unconventional strategies have been embraced by more than 700 organizations, including Fortune 100 companies such as Starbucks, Microsoft and New York Life, as well as Hollywood directors, New York Times-bestselling authors and leaders appearing on PBS, TED and Oprah.