LIFE LESSONS

5 Doable Strategies to Help You Deal with Uncertainty in Your Life

Sometimes you might feel lost like everything is going downhill and you’re going nowhere — but there are ways to recover

Living in a world of uncertain times is hard enough without having to also deal with uncertainly in your own life — this is true. It’s so much to process and it can all get really heavy. Not knowing and not being able to even remotely predict what will happen in the near or not so near future can feel extremely threatening.

At times you might wonder why everything has to be so ambiguous, and this can be difficult to comprehend. Ambiguity can make you feel vulnerable and unprotected and feeling obsessed with needing to create the certainty that’s missing in your life.

What to Do?

Although ways to cope with uncertainty are as diverse as all the ways uncertainty impacts your life, there are a few tried and true strategies that could help.

1. Acknowledge it

Attention! The first step toward dealing with uncertainty is facing that it exists. You first need to pause, think, and acknowledge that this is an issue in your life that needs to be fixed. There’s no shame in admitting that you’re feeling overwhelmed by the unknown.

Acknowledging your reality is the first step to accepting it as it is so that you can change it into something that you want it to be. Denying your reality leads to unnecessary pain, which can be stopped in its tracks by non-resistance to simply acknowledging what is.

One of the best ways to do this is to use mindfulness techniques. This will train you how to alter unwanted emotional states or unpleasant thoughts that can creep up on you. Learn to create a better inner space that can help you cope with bad feelings and stress.

2. Take care of yourself

I can’t stress this nearly enough. The worse thing you can do when dealing with a state of uncertainty is to neglect yourself — in any area. It is extremely important that you do not allow yourself to fall to the wayside, in terms of your physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual health.

And don’t let anybody tell you that you’re being selfish for telling yourself yes more and other people no. People will use you up if you let them, and that could be one of the main culprits feeding uncertainty. If you’re feeling pulled down in any area, then notice that and do what you need to do to fix it.

You may be having money problems (or not) but that doesn’t mean that you can’t be wealthy in holistic health. I don’t have to tell you because you already know that you need to eat healthy most of the time, exercise, meditate, and practice stillness.

3. Change Your Thinking

What you think you are, you are — a reminder from a psychological therapist of a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

With this being likely true, it is a good idea to stop wallowing in your stress and negative thoughts and replace them with positive those. Change your self-talk and how you think about situations to start the process of making things change.

Always thinking about the worst or the worse-case scenario will cause you to evoke negative emotions and panic, which could cause you to react in the same negative way, when all along it turns out to be for nothing. Stop buying into everything negative that you might think.

4. Uncover Ways to Keep Yourself in Check

I hate to tell you this, but uncertainty is not going anywhere. There will always be unknowns. With that being so, it would be good for you to find what works for you in terms of checking in on yourself and actively calming your mind.

For example, you could practice counting to 10 whenever you feel stressful feelings welling up. Or, one thing that I do is whenever somebody does something stupid, rude, ignorant, or inconsiderate, I send out blessings instead of curses into the universe. This little technique works wonders for me and, believe me, I have plenty of times to exercise it.

So say, somebody cuts me off in traffic. I just say something positive out loud instead of allowing negative emotions to take hold in that moment. Maybe for you, it could be flipping an awareness switch like tuning in to the birds singing or the gentle breeze blowing on your skin. Find some things that will work for you.

The main thing is that when you start to feel out of control, immediately go to whatever your pre-established anchor is to keep your mind grounded and calm. Get in complete awareness of something positive.

5. Remember that All Storms Will Run Out of Rain

It’s ok to acknowledge your fear of the unknown and how it makes you feel, but just understand that your storm of uncertainty will not last forever. You can take steps to ride the storm in ways that will bring you comfort and progress on the other side.

Take some time to recognize what it is that you want and then map out some ideas on how to make it happen. And ask yourself some questions to get you started — What resources will you need? Who can help you? What do you need to change? What are some contingencies? How will it benefit you?

Uncertainty doesn’t have to be so scary if you open your awareness to what you can achieve.

Just the thoughts of someone who can relate. Feel free to check out my bio if you are so inclined.