We are taught from an early age that writing things down is how you get organised.
The list is a tool for getting things out of your head and onto paper so you can see them clearly and act.
It works brilliantly. For shopping, for projects. For anything where the answer already exists and you just need to remember it.
But somewhere along the way, we started applying the same logic to decisions that don’t work like that at all. Decisions about who we are. What we want. Whether we’re allowed to want it. And that’s where the list stops being a tool and starts being a trap.
The pros and cons list feels like progress
If you’re a Head of Department in FE who is deciding to step into a senior leadership role but can’t quite make yourself do it, I’d put money on the fact that you have a list somewhere. Maybe several versions of it. Maybe you’ve rewritten it in different notebooks, different apps, different moments of clarity at the weekend that somehow never translate into action on Monday morning.
The list feels productive. It looks like you’re working on the problem. You’re being thorough, responsible, weighing things up carefully before making a big decision. That’s what sensible people do.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth
The list has the shape of action without any of the risk. As long as you’re still weighing things up, you haven’t committed. You haven’t had to test whether your fears are real or imagined. You haven’t had to find out whether you’re actually ready or whether that’s just a story you’ve been telling yourself.
The list protects you from all of that. And that’s exactly why it keeps you stuck.
What’s actually in the cons column
Take a look at your cons column. Really look at it. My guess is that most of what’s in there hasn’t happened yet. It’s a list of things that might go wrong. Fears dressed up as reasons. Stories about what the next step will cost you, what you’ll have to give up, who you might become.
My list wasn’t about stepping into senior leadership. It was about leaving it altogether and going self-employed. A different decision, but the same paralysis.
My cons were full of uncertainties: unstable income, not enough business out there, an unknown path, a smaller pension. Every single one of them was a projection. Not a fact. A fear I’d promoted to evidence without ever testing it. And when I finally made the move, most of them either didn’t materialise or turned out to be manageable in ways I hadn’t anticipated. Being employed isn’t as secure as it feels. You can be made redundant. I’d just never put that in the cons column because it felt normal.
Here’s what I’ve noticed working with women in FE who are stuck in exactly this place. The cons column is never really about logistics. It’s about identity. It’s about whether you’re allowed to want this much. Whether stepping up will cost you the things and the people that matter most. Whether you’ll still recognise yourself on the other side.
That question doesn’t get answered by adding another column.
The moment that shifted everything
I kept my list for months. I added to it. I edited it. I stared at it on a Sunday afternoon thinking I was doing something useful.
I wasn’t. I was just staying safe.
What eventually shifted it wasn’t another entry on the list. It wasn’t a podcast or a book or a conversation with someone who loved me too much to tell me the truth. That same Sunday afternoon, I sat down and wrote my resignation letter. Not to hand in. Just to write it.
When I finished it, something lifted. I read it back and I knew. I handed it in the next day and never looked back.
The list hadn’t been helping me decide. It had been helping me avoid deciding.
The list keeps you in your head
This isn’t a criticism. We are wired to seek certainty before we act, and in most areas of life that serves us well. But senior leadership is not a decision you can think your way into. It’s a decision you have to feel your way towards, and no amount of columns and bullet points will get you there.
When you’re in your head, you’re not moving. You’re just rearranging the furniture of your fear.
The women I work with who finally break through don’t do it because the list suddenly balances perfectly. They do it because they stop waiting for certainty and start gathering actual evidence. They talk to women who’ve done it. They apply for the role. They have the honest conversation they’ve been avoiding. They do something that takes them out of their head and into reality.
And almost every time, they find that what they were afraid of looked very different up close than it did on paper.
You already know what you want. You’ve known for longer than you’d probably admit out loud. The question is whether you’re ready to stop finding reasons to wait and start finding out what’s actually true.
What would you write if you stopped making the list?
If you want to stop going round in circles and find out what’s actually keeping you stuck, my free quiz takes five minutes and gives you a personalised breakdown. Take it here
