So… I’m in grad school! I’m doing a PsyD program to become a licensed therapist. (I’ve been jokingly calling it “therapist school”.)

I’m in the swing of things now, and it’s great. There’s no place I’d rather be. But getting here was a bit tumultuous, and I was riddled with indecision in Jan-Feb 2025, which is what I want to document here.

Context

I’d been floating the idea of going to “therapist school” since ~2024. I had just tried (and burnt out on) bootstrapping my own service doing career coaching, and I was looking at other paths for doing 1:1 work. And then I happened to meet several people who were career-switching into therapy, and had either just started their grad school program in counseling or were about to start.

This expanded my realm of possibilities, firmly planting the seed of “Oh I could actually do this too!” into my mind, where it hadn’t existed before. And once this seed was planted, it started to take root.

I began to connect the dots looking backward. “You know, I do spend a lot of my spare time on youtube watching 1:1 conversations and videos on psychology, mental health, and philosophy of mind. Maybe this is a sign that I might actually enjoy formally studying these things. 🤔”

Still, for most of 2024 I categorized ‘apply to grad school’ as one of my crazier ideas, on par with ‘apply to art school to become a classical oil painter’¹. It was definitely possible, but it was not probable.

But then near the end of 2024, I started to yearn for Good Work again, which eventually led to me deciding I was going to apply to grad school in late Dec. I still wasn’t all-in – my attitude to applying was more like, “F*ck it, I’ll apply and we’ll see what happens.” As if this was just the latest project idea that could either take off or be scrapped if it didn’t work. If I didn’t get in, well I still had other options and I would move on to the next thing.

Trial run

So I rushed out applications. The details of the application process aren’t that important, except for one: if I were to get into a PsyD (“Doctor of Psychology”) program, there were a handful of pre-req psych classes I’d need to complete in order to start. Up to four different ones. So I got started on those right away too.

This ended up also serving as a really nice experiment for me to dip my toes into schooling again to see if I would hate it or not, which is something I was worried about.

But it was largely enjoyable! It turns out that when you’re studying topics you actually have some interest in (psychology), the weekly readings can actually be engaging.

…

But alas, school is never going to be as fun as being on a sabbatical. Coming from a STEM background it was my first time doing readings-based courses, which I learned have their own flavour of Sisyphean trudging to them. There came a point around week 5 or 6 out of 12 in the semester, where the days were starting to feel mind-numbing and never-ending. Read textbooks, watch lecture videos, do assignments, and repeat.

And the doubt started creeping in.

I missed the freedom of my sabbatical, where I was working on fun creative projects at my own pace.

But I had felt adrift and antsy from having no broader direction…

And grad school would be very directed (toward a new career as a therapist)! It would be a clear path laid out for me. But it’d be ~5 years of grind ahead, and I’d have to pause most of my fun creative projects…

I kept cycling through each idea, flip-flopping. And in particular I kept identifying things I didn’t like about each path, which left me feeling stuck.²

WTF was I doing

It was at this point that I caught myself.

In the span of two months, I’d gone from: being tired of being on sabbatical and wanting to do something more significant → to applying to grad school → to trying out coursework → to feeling tired of coursework and wanting to play all day again.

What was this flip-flopping?

Was I just chasing positive feeling? Was I a slave to it?

This thought scared me and frustrated me enough to try to figure out what the f*ck I could do about this. Being stuck in indecision sucked. And it also seemed like a common human experience, and thus smarter folks than me must have some clearer understanding of this phenomenon and how to deal with it.

So as I tend to do, I turned to youtube and watched a bunch of Dr. K lectures about indecision. This was pivotal, as I had to come to understand that I was afraid.

I was afraid of making the wrong decision, wasting time, or ending up screwed. (And why make a hard decision that could turn out badly, when you can just play all day?)

And I was running away from the fear, which affirmed that the fear was worth running away from, which made it more powerful.

Understanding

One way to work through this kind of fear is to understand it.

Through understanding the mechanics of indecision and where the fear was coming from, I was able to see it more for what it was.

I was afraid of making the wrong decision, wasting time, and potentially ending up in a worse position. But actually “making the wrong decision” is a subpar frame. Not to say that you won’t ever end up screwed, e.g. due to things outside of your control. You might. Shit happens.

But largely it’s not the decision that determines the outcome, it’s how you act after the decision has been made. You have the power and agency to respond, iterate, or change course.

And somehow through understanding this and accepting it, the fear dissolved and I knew what I had to do.

Choosing ‘Focus’

I learned that fulfillment and purpose come from choosing something that’s in line with what you want to do. Just choose something, make a choice, and then commit to it (until things start to fray). Choose ‘focus’, and then enjoyment comes from being in the flow of working on that thing that you chose.

And if things start looking grim, choose what you want to do in response.

…

So far, my choice to do grad school has been working out. There’s no place I’d rather be right now.