The degree of the certainty you have for the future comes from the quality of how you picture the future inside your own mind. If your picture of the future is fuzzy, or dull, or unclear, you will have uncertainty. The only way to make this picture clear and focused is to make a decision to follow through on one idea regardless of whether you have all the information you need to decide. Either go for it, or let it go, just don’t sit on the fence. It won’t help.
A lot of people say, ‘I just can’t decide! I’m going to wait and see’! Is that you? Are you saying, ‘ I’m waiting to see what happens. I’m waiting to see what’s the next step. I’m waiting to see how things are going to pan out’ ?
The thing is, while it might be prudent to wait right now, the question you should be asking yourself is:
‘What happens when you get tired of waiting? Are you really going to act, once the waiting is over? Are you are ready to take action? What are you going to do? What is your focus going to be? Are you ready to focus on something new? Are you getting ready to change direction? Are you getting ready to double down?’ Then, make a decision and start now.
If you just can’t decide right now and you’re waiting, you are really just delaying making a decision about the future. The best course of action is to make a decision even if you are not sure, even if you don’t have all the information because when you make a decision that helps you move forward. It helps you to get focused, to get the information you need.
When I think about the greatest achievements of my life, they have always happened in times of uncertainty when I made a decision to follow through. ‘Right, let’s just do this and see what happens!’
It’s just a decision. You can always change direction later, you don’t have to follow through, you still have the freedom to change your direction in the future.
The waiting game is a dangerous game, because it teaches you to procrastinate – ‘I’ll wait and see.’ But you are much better off making a decision now and then finding out what happens because then you’re more prepared. You’ve actually taking action towards the goals you want. You do want this? Don’t you.
One of the things people say to me when they have such a high degree of uncertainty is ‘I’m really scared!’ This is very common. I want to give you a strategy for thinking about this. Fear is an emotion and fear results from how we perceive possible outcomes in the future.
Philip Tatlock, who studied forecasting has literally proven that there’s no certainty about the future. He found from a multi decade study of experts who predicted the future, that these experts were no better at predicting the future than a random guess. We can’t predict the future, all we can do is create a most likely scenario of what it could be.
Think about this for a moment, if we want to create the most likely scenario, this means we have a choice. You can walk down the road that gives you what you want or you can walk down the road of what you don’t want. If there is a choice between what you want and what you don’t want, which would you pick?
Hopefully you’d pick the thing that you want.
“But, I’m anxious”, I hear you say.
Of course you are, because you are picturing the outcome that you don’t want. Why worry about something that might not happen! Doesn’t it make more sense to think for a moment about what you want, an outcome that would actually help you to be better prepared and give you more chances of a successful outcome!
Make a decision, your future self will thank you.
This articles is based on a Clip from Fresh Coffee Coaching Episode 07 – Dealing With Uncertainty – Watch the Full Clip here