The people around you feel it too.
As some of you know, my son Ben graduated high school recently and for a little while it seemed like he was lost in a way that's hard to explain. Not in a dramatic way, not falling apart. Just... unanchored. He’s been restless in a way that made him hard to reach. You could feel the tension under the surface with the edginess, the closed-off answers, the sense that he was moving through his days without anything solid to hold onto.
My husband came to me one evening recently and said he'd just had the best moment with Ben. Not because anything major had changed. Ben had started working in an environment that genuinely aligns with him, and something along the way had quietly shifted. My husband noticed how warm and open he was. He shared some personal stuff but it was a simple conversation about heading out to go fishing with a friend. My husband couldn't name exactly what changed, he just knew something had and he had noticed.
Because of the work I do, and being his mom, I knew. Ben had found one small anchor.
Not a five-year plan. Not clarity about everything that comes next. Just one thing that was his, that mattered, that gave him somewhere to stand on solid ground.
And what struck me as I listened wasn't just what it did for Ben. It was what it did for all of us. That ripple effect went further than I expected.
Ben is 19, but I'm seeing something similar in professionals who have been in the workforce for 20 years.
There's a word circulating right now in conversations about AI, careers, and the future of work. FOBO and it means Fear of Becoming Obsolete. It's different from the fear of losing your job. It's the quieter, creepier fear that your skills are degrading in real time, that you're falling behind faster than you can catch up, and that relevance itself is slipping away while you're still trying to figure out what relevant even means anymore.
What I've watched over 25 years is that FOBO doesn't just make people anxious. It makes them unanchored. And being unanchored doesn't stay internal. It changes how you show up to everyone around you. It makes you harder to reach, harder to be around, harder to connect with. The people who love you can feel it, even when they don’t have a name for it.
Watching Ben, and watching hundreds of professionals navigate moments exactly like this, taught me something... you don't need the whole answer. You don't need a complete picture of what comes next. You need one anchor. One thing that is real, that is yours, that gives you somewhere to stand while the rest of life sorts itself out.
The anchor doesn't eliminate the uncertainty. It just means the uncertainty no longer is writing your story for you. That's the difference between being lost and being in unmapped territory. One feels like an ending. The other is just the part before the next chapter begins.
If this resonates with you, what is one thing, right now, that you can pinpoint that is genuinely yours? Not a goal. Not a plan. Just something real that gives you a sense of grounding.
It’s ok if it takes you awhile to think about it. If you can identify it to yourself, even quietly - that's the anchor and that’s where you start.
🩵 One Thing I'm Loving
Check out the TED talk by Hrund Gunnsteinsdóttir called Listen to Your Intuition - It Can Help You Navigate the Future. Hrund is an Icelandic author and filmmaker, and she builds her talk around the concept of innsæi which is an Icelandic word for intuition that literally translates to "the sea within." Her central idea is that the deepest sense of security we will ever find is already inside us, and that in turbulent times, our inner compass matters more than any external map. For anyone who has ever felt unanchored and looked outside themselves for the answer, this is worth 9 minutes of your time. Watch it and notice what it brings up for you. Watch the TED Talk here
Remember, you are the author of what comes next.
Warmly,
Heather
Heather Stoffle | Transformation Strategist | Anchored in Possibility™
