A Rock and a Hard Place
Uncertainty is a bitch.
- “Do I stay or do I go?”
- “Should I do this or that?”
- “Will I regret this?”
When we don’t have control over an outcome, we get a serious case of brain-drain, spiraling thoughts, and nagging feelings.
Most of us handle uncertainty in one or more of the following ways:
- We confuse ourselves even more. We have no idea what we want so we think more options will compensate for our lack of vision.
- We honor our inner-critic instead of our inner-guide, twisting our stress into “proof” that we aren’t good enough, smart enough, or whatever script your inner-critic likes to follow.
- We second guess, then triple guess our decisions. We seem to think that somewhere there is a perfect choice.
- We jump to the worst-case scenario and feel like the walls are slowly caving in. From that space, we feel trapped and forced to take whatever comes our way.
News flash:
The perfect choice, circumstance, or situation doesn’t exist. There are positives and negatives to everything. Life is about making choices and either making it work, changing our mind later, and/or learning from our mistakes.
You can develop certainty and build your confidence, the same way you would a muscle:
- Shut up. Seriously. Shut up and listen to your inner guide. Why ask everyone else for help if you aren't listening to the one person who knows the right answer (You!) Stop drowning your intuition out with food, TV, company, or anything else. This doesn’t mean you use this time to stress over your problem more, it means you create space to let your mind work things out. Your truth is in your unconscious state, you just need to shut up long enough to hear it.
- Set a deadline. Without a deadline, you can obsess over paint colors forever. (Yes, that’s a personal example!) Decide when you’ll decide by. Sounds counter-intuitive like it’ll add more stress, but it actually makes it bite-sized. What’s a deadline? A date, time, and person who you’ll be accountable to. By next week I will know whether my new apartment will be “Purple Rain” or “Iris Bliss.”
- Say “Yes” or “No.” It’s not about "this" or "that," it’s about "yes" or "no." Each option is actually broken down into two decisions. Let’s take my home décor dilemma. It isn’t Purple Rain or Iris Bliss, it’s actually Yes or No to each option. And the beauty of a yes/no question is that it’s clear and concise.
There are a myriad of pros/cons tools, lists, and systems that I use with clients, but it all comes down to this: Ask yourself,
Does this make me feel expansive or contracted?
And if you did step 1, the answer should be clear.