Your Confusion Is Trying to Tell You Something... Stop Ignoring It

Reading time: 3 minutes Category: Founder Psychology + Brand Clarity Outcome: “I need clarity before I try to scale.”

The fog will somehow lift.

We don’t like to admit when we feel confused. Not publicly, and often not even to ourselves. High achievers treat confusion the way most people treat weakness... as something to push through, silence, or just outrun. We assume that if we just apply more effort, more planning, more discipline, or more output, the fog will somehow lift.

But confusion is not a malfunction, it’s communication, it’s your internal world trying to signal that something in the way you’ve been operating no longer fits who you’re becoming.

Most people feel this long before they understand it. They sense the mismatch before they have the language for it, and because they don’t recognize what’s happening, they assume something is “wrong” rather than realizing something might just be evolving.

The founders I work with rarely arrive at clarity feeling clear, they come feeling scattered, restless, flat, uninspired, impatient, or strangely disconnected from work that once energized them. They describe themselves as "stuck", but they’re not really stuck, they’re just standing in the "in-between"... like the space in the Netflix hit tv series, Stranger Things, but no demigods or annihilating monsters, just the space between the person they were and the person they are in the process of becoming.

This is the moment where confusion shows up, but it's not necessarily an obstacle, if handled properly, it can be a threshold for something bigger... MUCH BIGGER!

But often, instead of listening, they try to [over] compensate. They throw more marketing at the problem. They post more content. They redesign their website at 2:00 on the morning. They try to outrun an internal transition with external activity...but it never works, because you can’t build forward from an identity you’ve already outgrown.

She thought she was burning it all down.

A client told me recently that it felt like her entire business was dissolving under her feet. Fifteen years of success, momentum, and recognition… and suddenly nothing lit her up. She thought she was burning it all down.

What she didn’t realize was that nothing was collapsing. She was evolving. Her ideas were maturing, her voice was getting sharper, and her purpose was stretching beyond the language she’d been using to describe it.

The moment she stopped treating it like a crisis and started treating it like growth, everything clicked. The inspiration came back. The curiosity came back. The energy came

That’s the thing about inflection points for high-performers: They don’t destroy you. They expand you. They make room for the next version of you to breathe.

Often, people think confusion is a sign that you’re failing. It's not, it’s a sign that your internal framework is rearranging itself. It’s uncomfortable because it asks you to release the clarity you once depended on before you know what will replace it. It requires you to let go of the map before you’ve seen the new one. And that kind of surrender feels almost impossible for people who are used to overfunctioning their way through everything... ahem, sound familiar?

Slow down long enough to listen.

If you’re in that season right now, the invitation is simple: slow down long enough to listen.

• Ask yourself what part of you is shifting.

• Ask what story no longer feels true.

• Ask what identity you’ve been performing out of habit rather than out of alignment.

The answers don’t show up all at once, but they always show up when you give them space.

Here are a few questions that help:

• What part of my work feels too small for who I’ve become?

• Where do I feel myself forcing energy that used to feel natural?

• What story am I still telling because it’s familiar, not because it reflects me now?

• If I stopped trying to “fix” things for a moment, what truth would finally surface?

When you sit with these questions long enough, your confusion starts to reveal its shape. You begin to see that you’re not lost, you’re transitioning, and transitions always feel foggy before they feel clear.

I’ve felt this in my own transitions too. I recently ended a three-year relationship with a woman I thought was my forever person, and the space afterward has been its own kind of fog, tender, uncertain, and full of those quiet moments where the future feels both open and unfamiliar. But that’s what the in-between always is: a stretch of road that asks for patience.

Your brand moves through the same arc.

When you evolve, there’s always a moment where nothing feels solid yet. It’s not failure. It’s the hallway between chapters.

Clarity is not found in rushing. It arrives in honesty, perspective, and the willingness to stop performing the version of yourself you’ve already outgrown. When you accept that, your direction becomes easier to see. Your voice sharpens. Your message opens up. Your brand begins to reflect the person who is actually here, not the one you’ve been holding onto.

Your confusion is not here to derail you, it’s here to redirect you. And the sooner you stop ignoring it, the sooner you can step into the chapter that’s been waiting for you.

If you’re in this in-between space…

…where you’re evolving faster than your brand or message can catch up, this is the exact moment where clarity matters most. This is why I built this business, to provide a mirror and a focused transitional clarity process designed to help you understand who you’re becoming and translate that into a message and direction that finally feel true.

If you want to explore whether it fits where you are, just reply or send me a message with the word CLARITY.

You don’t need to push harder. You just need to understand what’s shifting.

About Deevo

Deevo Tindall is a storyteller, strategist, and recovering overthinker who helps founders and creatives build brands that actually feel human. He believes branding is therapy with better lighting, that identity work belongs in the boardroom, and that emotional intelligence is the most underpriced asset in business.

When he’s not guiding leaders through existential brand crises, you can find him behind a camera, waxing poetic about human behavior, or convincing himself that black coffee counts as breakfast.

Follow him on LinkedIn explore his work at thebrandstoryteller.com or find him on Instagram @deevothebrandstoryteller