The One Non-Negotiable That Keeps Me Clear-Minded

Career Coaching, Clarity, and Better Decision Making

I train five times a week. I have done so for more than twenty-five years. But this isn’t just about muscles, or fitness. It’s about thinking. It’s about clarity, reflection, and decision making.

Training is the one thing I never give up. Not when I’m busy. Not when I travel. Not when I became a parent. It’s the place where my thoughts can settle without pressure. Where I hear my own thinking instead of getting pulled in a dozen directions.

For a long time, I thought this was just personal preference. But over the years, I’ve come to see something deeper. What I actually protect in training is a quiet space where one part of my brain can do its work.

Science calls this part the default mode network. It’s active when the brain isn’t focused on a specific task, when we are reflecting, imagining, connecting dots, daydreaming, or processing experiences. This is where self-awareness, insight, and long-term thinking live. It’s the background noise that often turns into clarity when we slow down or do something physical that doesn’t demand intense focus. (Simply Psychology)

The other system researchers describe is the executive control network. This is the part of the brain responsible for focus, execution, problem-solving, and managing tasks, what many professionals operate in all day long. (nature.com)

For years, leadership and performance culture rewarded staying almost exclusively in executive mode. More focus. More output. More efficiency. But research now shows that strong strategic thinking and sound decision making depend on the ability to move between these two modes.

When the default mode has space to operate, it feeds the executive mode with clearer priorities, better judgment, and more grounded choices. This balance is critical for leaders. For all professionals.

Traditionally we think of these as opposites. When one is on, the other is off. But more recent research shows they work together. When these two systems learn to switch back and forth, and sometimes even couple in the right balance, people generate better ideas, make more creative decisions and can plan with both insight and control. (nature.com)

For me, running creates that balance. I am not forcing thinking. I am not in execution mode. My body is doing well-learned routines, and my mind quietly shifts into what brain science calls default mode, the place where associations form, where future scenarios emerge and where meaning becomes clearer.

During a coaching session a while back, my coach asked me a simple question mid-run:“If your brain had a name for this mode right now, what would it be?”I said “clear.”Just naming it allowed me to recognize that this was my thinking mode, the space where my best ideas come.

That’s the power of naming patterns. My training isn’t just for the body, it’s where my brain thinks.

Most people look for clarity by trying harder. More meetings. More lists. More pages of notes. But clarity doesn’t come from effort. It comes when the default mode has room to breathe and the executive mode has a chance to organize its output.

In coaching we explore: Where do you actually think well? Not in theory but in practice.

For some people it’s a walk, a shower, a quiet commute, a run, cooking or even folding laundry. What matters is that it’s a space where the brain can move out of task mode without shutting down depth-thinking.

Once you protect that space intentionally, your leadership mindset changes. Decisions feel cleaner. Hesitation decreases. You trust your judgment again.

Once you identify that space, like I did with running, you start to see decisions differently. You stop forcing clarity and begin noticing it. You stop thinking of your 'private' time as a 'waste of time'.

Bottom line - Clarity is not produced by work intensity. It comes from creating space where your brain can use both introspection and focus in balance that works for you.

Here are some reflection questions:

• Where does your thinking feel most clear without effort?

• What activity gives your brain room to connect dots instead of just pushing tasks?

• If you protected that space like a meeting on your calendar, how might your decisions change?

If you want support identifying where your best thinking actually happens, how to build that into your decision-making and leadership, and how to remove your own mindset barriers that tells you that you don't have time for this - carr

coaching is the place to explore that with intention, clarity, and real choices. Start with clarity.