One of the things I’m really passionate about is bringing order to chaos. Now, before we dive into an understanding of how to effectively manage uncertainty, we must love and recognize that chaos is necessary. We must appreciate chaos because without we wouldn’t know when to act and what to do. Use uncertainty as a signal that you need to take action in a particular area of your life. The way I tackle uncertainty is in 3 easy steps:
1. Ask yourself: what is it exactly causing my uncertainty? Is it that I’m not prepared in a certain topic? Is it that I don’t know what will be the outcome? Is this uncertainty generating anxiety in me? The more questions you ask yourself the more empowered you feel. Now, make sure that the questions you are asking yourself are empowering questions such as the ones above. I’ll just give you an example of a dis-empowering question so you can recognize it when you see it: why does it happen to me? Why am I the one who has to go through this all the time? So, those are dis-empowering questions, or in other way, these are questions that make you victim of your situation. Whenever you’re confronted with uncertainty, always ask questions that will get you out of the mud you are in, and not questions that will make you feel piti about yourself. The uncertainty is going to be there no matter what, whether you ask empowering or dis-empowering questions. But your ability to turn this whole uncertainty around is to start taking action. If you were drowning in the middle of the ocean, would you stay still and ask yourself why does it happen to me? or would you find a way to get help or get anything to get yourself out of that situation? Or will you stay still waiting for someone to pass by and feel so sorry about you and come help you out? In life, you’re either up or down, there’s no in between. You are either growing or shrinking, you are either drowning or swimming, you’re either going up the escalator or waiting for the best time to jump on it. Nothing remains constant in life. Absolutely nothing. So, once you find exactly what’s causing your uncertainty, whether it will be a promotion in a job, a test you need to take, a result you want to create, then lay out 3 things you want to do to make it happen.
2. Lay out 3 options of action. Make sure it’s simple. Please do not complicate your options. Just lay them out as simple as possible. It doesn’t have to be something crazily elaborated. Just have 3 options that you think will help you get out of your situation. Now, please do it as quickly as possible. Please avoid trying to come up with the best most perfect 3 options. Quickly envision what it will be life if you are to take this option. The faster you can take action on these 3 options, the faster you can get feedback to the right course of action. You need this momentum to get yourself out of the uncertainty mud that is pulling you. So once you start taking action towards solving it, you need to take crazy faster action to keep the ball moving. If you over analyze and try to get your friend’s perspective as to what they think should be your right course of action, then you will go back to the initial point of feeling stuck. Plus if you gain momentum you will get an immediate emotional reward that comes from moving and taking action right away. You will feel so much better and as you feel better, your juices in your brain starts firing up, dopamine is released from your system. You are now fully engaged into solving your uncertainty.
3. Take corrective action immediately. There’s no failure in life, the only thing you are left with is the result of your actions. The more actions you take, the higher your likelihood of finding the answer that will put you in control. If one action didn’t work, then try another one. If that action didn’t work, try another one. Keep trying and testing as many options as possible, because every time you test a new option and get the results, you know you are getting closer to the answer. You can look at it this way. If I were to give you a 1000 units pack of Lottery scratch games, and you knew that 1 of them had the lucky prize winner. Will you just scratch one and give up, or will you scratch as many as possible to get to the big prize winner? Now, keep in mind that while you’re scratching these lottery cards, you’re getting some rewards, they’re not big prizes but they’re big enough to get you motivated. However, the fact that you got a small prize doesn’t mean that the next one will be the big prize. So, same thing in life, the faster you get the results from your actions, the faster you get to the big prize. Getting no results or getting small results only mean that you’re getting closer. The actions that yield no results are also necessary to reach to your big prize. So move fast, evaluate your results, and take corrective action immediately.
This is how I get from uncertainty to certainty in no time. This is how I empower myself to get out of the mud and have a clear picture where I feel so much better. Now, just keep in mind that uncertainty is part of life, and you will have it come back again. Uncertainty is part of our emergency alert mechanism that tells us that we need to take action and move. Without it we would never know. Without it life will be very boring. We always need this element of surprise in our lives.
Just remember that worrying sucks, and gets you stuck. Action is best medicine to kill any worrying crap that might have stung you, or is now causing you pain. If you take no action, you’re letting yourself fall victim of the situation. Always take action no matter how small or how insignificant, you will always figure out a better way along the way. Fact of the matter is, no matter what action you take, what is going to happen, will happen. What you need to do is be mentally prepared for whatever happens. But like they say, shit happens when you are not mentally prepared, when you think that everything is under control. That’s when shit hits the fan. It’s true, but what’s really amazing is that you condition yourself to naturally act and take action automatically. You practice it so much that your body does it naturally without thinking. That’s why it’s very important for you to start practicing in taking action and going through the results and empowering yourself to take control of your situation. If you do it long enough, I can guarantee you a life admirable to manage uncertainty at any point in your life. This is something that will back forever in your life. For this I must give credit to Tony Robbins from whom I learned how to manage uncertainty. What you read up there is his philosophy plus some of my own experience, and how I tackle uncertainty. Hope it helped you