How to find your feet in the midst of uncertainty

Finding your feet might seem impossible right now, but it’s crucial that you get on stable ground.

by: E.B. Johnson

We are living in uncertain and scary times, and it can be easy to lose our way in the chaos. The longer we live in uncertainty, the greater our fears and insecurities can become. In order to face these down and build lives which are authentic and purposeful, we have to discover ways to find our feet even in the craziness of it all. This takes courage, yes, but it takes creativity too. When we learn to find the opportunity in the bad stuff, that’s when we find our power.

Stop allowing the tides of chaos to rule your life. Leave the drift to people who don’t know themselves and start stepping up to the plate for yourself and the things you believe. Finding our feet is never an easy process, but it’s one that can free us in innumerable ways. Learning to be present and learning how to nurture meaningful action transforms our lives and allows us to make sense of it all, but it’s a journey that requires us to look into the deepest parts of ourselves.

We are living in uncertain times.

You only have to turn on your phone to become completely immersed in the heartbreaking negativity and chaos that is all around us. We are a society on the brink and a world in flux. It’s a time for dramatic action, but this action is not limited to the political and social spheres. We too must transform in this moment, but that requires first finding our feet and the stability to go after the things that give our futures purpose.

If you’re uncomfortable with all this uncertainty, you’re not alone. We’re all reeling as we struggle to balance our day-to-day responsibilities against the weight of this turbulent new world. The difference is in how you choose to handle this instability. Will you cower and bury your head in the sand? Or will you choose the find the new opportunities that are opening up all around you?

The fact of the matter is that uncertainty offers us incredible doorways into possibility. When we are pushed to the brink, that is when we find our true courage, as well as a new and previously unconsidered opportunity. We have to let go of the fear and open up our minds and our hearts to the idea that our discomfort is pushing us to fantastic new heights. The more we embrace the uncertainty, the easier to find our feet in an increasingly unstable world. That requires digging deep, however, and taking our first step into the unknown.

Where we get lost along the way.

We all get a little lost and a little distracted along the way and it’s not hard to see why. Our lives are challenging, and they are filled with all kinds of hardships and responsibilities that can obscure and obstruct our true joy and happiness on this earth. In order to get back on track and get our feet back in the sand, we must understand these hurdles and how they impact our journey.

Disconnecting with purpose

Feeling lost is often a sign that we’ve disconnected with our purpose somewhere along the way. Purpose is important, and it keeps us motivated and inspired (even in the darkest of moments). When we lose that purpose, however, we lose our anchor to the future. Adrift and devoid of direction, we can find ourselves battered by storms unseen and dragged under by the inevitable tides of fate.

Losing sight of passions

Like purpose, the passion in our lives is crucial to the journey we are undertaking. Passion is that drive or that fire that keeps you energized, interested and engaged in the world around you. It’s another font of inspiration, but one that we often lose as the limited real-estate in our lives is given up to responsibilities like work and family. If you’re truly looking to find your feet again, you need to find a way to follow your passions.

Following different desires

It’s not hard to find yourself chasing someone else’s dream, but it is an extremely toxic way to live. When we build a life that is aligned with someone else’s ideals or values we find ourselves floundering when these people are (inevitably) removed. The only person’s opinion that matters is our own, and the only purpose we should be aligning ourselves to is that which aligns to the authentic core of who we are.

Undervaluing self-opinion

If you spend your life chasing the validation of other people rather than looking inward for your own validation, you’ll find yourself adrift with very little sense of true connection or purpose in regards to the world around you. Undervaluing your own opinion is toxic, and it limits the opportunities you are able to afford for yourself. While other people can offer us perspective, they cannot offer us the answer or purpose in life.

Chased away by fear

We all have a number of fears and insecurities that can range from mild to crippling. The longer we allow these fears to fester in the dark, the greater a debilitating factor they become. Fear and insecurities drive us away from the things in life that is rightfully ours and prevent us from taking action (or making decisions) when they’re needed. That’s why it’s so important to confront these fears and resolve them, so you can take the action that manifests the life and love you desire.

Natural circumstances

Sometimes, there’s nothing insidious in the drift we feel, or the instability. Often, it’s the result of the natural course of our lives and the responsibilities we create for ourselves. This can be in the way of work, family or friends. All of these things take away our focus, and they take away space in our world for ourselves. It’s all about finding the balance and learning how to never lose sight of yourself even as your life grows with others.

Why it’s important to find our feet.

It’s not good enough to accept that we’re lost. We have to take action to find ourselves again. From increased wellbeing to a better ability to pivot, it’s crucial that we find our feet in order to thrive.

Overall wellbeing

Finding your feet isn’t just something for yoga-moms or new-age CEOs. We. can all benefit from building our own stability in this life, and we do this primarily by finding peace. Personal stability enhances your mental and emotional wellbeing. When you find your feet, you allow yourself to find internal tranquility as well as the drive and desire that brings the right action into your life.

Personal independence

There are, perhaps, few greater gifts we can give ourselves than personal independence. This type of independence indicates the courage and self-esteem to stand on your own, or go after the things you want for yourselves. Finding our authentic center and stabilizing our lives allows us to see that we are not only strong enough to manage our own lives — but we’re capable too. Only when we learn how to stand on our own two feet can we get serious about building a future that is authentically ours.

Enhanced decision making

Once you’re clear of the chaos, it makes it easier to see things clearly or to see them as they truly are. When you find your feet, you’ll actually give yourself the gift of better critical thinking, and through that enhanced decision making. Think of it a bit like moving to higher ground. Right now, you’re too low and lost in the clouds. Climb a little higher, though, and the whole world will open up to you.

Ability to pivot

When you find your feet, you find your balance and that makes it easier to pivot when life throws adversity your way. What we want now is not always what we want forever, nor is it always an option. That’s why it’s important to keep an open mind and find the balance and the beauty in moving on and moving up. When life gets hard, we find new opportunities by pivoting and finding a new way to move in the direction of our dreams.

The best ways to find your feet in the midst of uncertainty.

Being lost now does not mean you have to stay lost forever. No matter how dark or chaotic this world gets, we can always dig deep and find our feet in the madness. This requires looking inward and learning to see the opportunity shadows. That alone is a process, though, and one that means finding the determination to take direct and meaningful action in our own lives.

1. Look at crisis as the doorway to opportunity

Uncertainty, without a doubt, comes with its share of crises, but those same moments of chaos can provide great opportunity. The darkness of chaos is unsettling and it can throw us off balance and make it hard to see the forest for the trees. Learning how to see things in a new way, however? This empowers us to turn our negative experiences into positive ones and find our feet even in the midst of great uncertainty.

Stop automatically rushing to put out all the fires in your life and take a step back to see if there are any fires that could benefit you. The ending of important relationships, careers or even friendships can often create even more room in our life for good and beneficial things to come in. Though crisis is painful, it’s a boon to those with imagination too.

When you start to see crisis as a way to grow and reshape the way you see thee world, you’ll start to see sense in the chaos. The more patterns you identify, the more at ease you’ll become with the change and the upheaval that comes as a natural part of life. We associate change with instability and fear, and while that makes sense — it also holds us back from meeting new people and creating new experiences.

2. Engage in calculated disconnection

Are you feeling lost in the swirl and the chaos? One of the best gifts you can give yourself is calculated disconnection. This is a technique that allows us to detach, re-center and refocus on ourselves in a powerful way. When you disconnect in this way you do so meaningfully, and you allow yourself to get the mental and emotional space you need to let go of the guilt and the shame that might already be plaguing your lost and troubled mind.

Build some personal time into your schedule and make it a regular practice. During this time, stop posting on your social media accounts; don’t make yourself available to anyone by phone or by text. Use the time to be present with yourself and present at the moment. Be at one with the world and focus solely on you and your needs for just a short window of time.

Don’t worry about coming out on the other side. Don’t be concerned about doing anything that makes you “better” or anything that makes you “stronger” (that’s for self-care; see below). Use this time to turn your brain off and completely detach from your reality. Let go of the negativity of the news. Put the conflict and the arguments and the chaos behind you. Just be present at the moment and let all the feelings and all the heartbreaks have their space.

3. Find the meaningful action

Meaningful action is important, as too many of us get stuck in the completely meaningless and mundane facets of existence that distract us and disrupt us. When we take meaningful action in our lives, we add value, enhance our skills, or otherwise increase our opportunity by taking initiative. We are the only ones who have the power to save ourselves, but that’s something that doesn’t happen by accident.

Identify the meaningful action you can take in your life, which helps you to fine-tune your perspective, or increase your self-confidence and self-belief. You can do this by taking action for yourself, but you can also do it by taking action for others. Look for a problem or fear in your life, and face it. Then, overcome it by taking a step away from its shadow.

Focus on your values as you take action. When you’re taking steps in the right direction, you should feel confident and fulfilled. Only by aligning these values with the action we take can we ensure that we are making decisions that are centered around our best intentions. Don’t just spend your life going through the motions. Look for opportunities to take action in the physical world so you can bring your future into the present.

4. Invest in self-care

Self-care is important, but so many of us lose sight of that importance thanks to the stress of everyday life. It’s not selfish to look after yourself, as a matter of fact it’s far more complex than that. To invest in self-care is to invest in your own wellbeing and ensure that you have mental and emotional faculties needed to overcome life’s challenges. It’s giving yourself time to rest, recharge and refocus so you can find your feet and get back on the right track.

Set aside some time in your schedule for yourself and do it regularly. Don’t make self-care a once-a-month or a once-a-year affair. You don’t have to do something expensive or grandiose. Just spend some time relaxing and being present in your mind, your soul and your body.

Acts of self-care can be as small as taking 15 minutes a day to journal, or it can be as complex and taking a traveling-weekend to yourself once or twice a month. There’s no right or wrong way to self-care. All that matters is that you are engaging in things that allow you to detach from the stress in your life and get back in touch with the root of who you are. Self-care relaxes us, but it also helps us to see the world and ourselves in an entirely new light.

5. Learn into social support

Our social support systems are crucial right now and provide key emotional and mental bolstering. If you feel like your world is splintering, or if you feel like you’re lost in the mix — they can provide powerful perspective and help point you back in the direction of the action that you need to take.

Reach out to friends and family you can trust. Don’t feel shy about opening up, but don’t unleash a burden on anyone who isn’t prepared to help you with it. Before you open up, ask them, “I’m having a bit of a hard time right now. Do you mind listening to me vent?”

Express the problems that you’re having and allow them to fill in any details with the knowledge that you are only able to perceive one side of the story (your own). Listen to the truths they tell you, but compare them against your own experience and desires. While our support networks can provide confidence and a new point of view, we alone can make the right choices for ourselves.

6. Tap back into the core of who you are

It’s impossible to find stability — true and lasting stability that aligns with your core values and purpose — without knowing who you are at your core. Knowing who you are means looking at the good and the bad and embracing it, but also learning how to appreciate the room for growth. It means taking action and resolving to look after those things which mean the most to you, so you can carve out a future that is both stable and authentically yours.

Get back to the root of who you are — outside of your family, your friends, your religion or any other beliefs that were handed to you by someone else. Look inwardly, only at yourself, and question who you truly are and who you want to be to the surrounding people.

Stop piecing together remnants of a life that isn’t yours. See the fullness of who you are, the rich tapestry of your personality and desires, and allow that to fill all the spaces in your life that are currently stacked with fog. Tapping back into the core of who you are is a powerful step in learning how to find the stillness and the serenity, even in the chaos. When you know who you are, you know where you’re going, and you don’t have to dissolve into the stress of the journey.

Putting it all together…

If you’re feeling lost right now, you’re not alone. We live in a world that is both chaotic and scary, and it can be easy to lose your way or lose your sense of purpose. Building happier lives requires us to find stability, even in moments of uncertainty. This comes through confidence and discovering better ways to get back in touch with who we are and what we truly want from this life.

Start seeing crisis and uncertainty as the doorway to new opportunities. When we find ourselves smack-dab in the middle of chaos, we also find new reserves within ourselves and an ingenuity that can equal big changes. That doesn’t mean we can’t get overwhelmed, however, and find ourselves needing to take a step back through calculated disconnection. Give yourself space and use that space to invest in some self-care. Get back to the root of you and find the meaningful action you can take to transform yourself for the better — even in the midst of uncertainty. Lean into your social support networks and allow them to lend you the confidence and perspective you need to find your feet in the chaos and the changeability of it all. By tapping back into the core of who you are you can find your path again, but it’s going to take hard work and a lot of figuring out what truly matters most to you (and you alone).