Thriving in Times of Uncertainty

“When nothing is sure, everything is possible.”

– Margaret Drabble

1. Expect the unexpected

One of the best ways to immunise yourself from the shocks and surprises that the outside world tends to dish up, is to adopt a mindset of expecting the unexpected.

When uncertainty becomes an expectation, as opposed to something from ‘left field’, fear and anxiety about the inevitable consequences will subside dramatically.

If your mindset is to expect uncertainty and your life takes an unexpected turn, you are more likely to be able to reconcile yourself to the changes that it brings on than if you have had your head in the sand pretending that life is (or should be) predictable.

Please note: The three paragraphs that follow were inserted \’after the fact\’ or, in other words, as something of an addendum to the original Blog post:

I wrote this post as I normally do on a Tuesday, ready for publishing and announcing early on Wednesday morning. I woke in the early hours of Wednesday with a strange feeling that I may have ‘tempted fate’ with this article!

Sure enough, a few hours later, I was to face a test of the validity (or sincerity) of my own advice. At 8am, as I prepared to announce this blog post, the Life Coaching Insights website did something it has never done before … it crashed … spectacularly and wholly unexpectedly!

The sinking feeling that accompanied that realisation, and the many subsequent uneasy hours spent trying to rescue the site from some faceless hacker, were offset by a comforting and somewhat humorous reflection of inner knowingness … this was the universe at work, testing my capacity for drinking my own medicine!

2. Learn to embrace the challenges of life

The effect of uncertainty is to increase the level of challenge we humans face. And challenge, very simply, is the basis for our growth and development.

If you think back to one or two of your most important achievements in life, it is likely that these will have come off the back of some of the most significant challenges you faced.

The more you embrace challenge and take it on, the more you are positively surprised by your own inner strength and ingenuity and the better prepared you are, both mentally and physically, for the next challenge. This would explain why some people rise to challenges better than others.

As you overcome challenges, you grow stronger, more capable, more confident and more resilient as a person. Instead of trying to avoid challenges you start to embrace them, realising their value.

Think of this as a ‘virtuous cycle’!

3. Give up blame and justification

Uncertainty causes things around you to change and, quite often, that change appears, at least at face value, to have a negative effect on your life.

It’s a natural human reaction to get angry and blame someone or something else for your unexpected predicament.

Equally, it is human nature to justify why you are in the situation you are in as you seek to defend your ego from potential loss of face or embarrassment.

But laying blame and justifying – though doing so may help you feel better in the short-term – does absolutely nothing to improve your situation in the longer run.

There’s a better way …

4. Take control of your life

Accept responsibility for who you are, what you are and the situation you find yourself in.

Stop giving your power away to others by blaming and justifying. Take back your power and pride by accepting that you created the life you are now leading and know that you, and only you, can change it.

This is an extremely difficult concept for most people to grasp … but when they do it can be incredibly uplifting and liberating.

Acceptance of the complete responsibility you carry for your life is key to accessing your inner power.

5. Live authentically

One of the most important benefits for those who come to accept their personal responsibility, is a new appreciation for the importance of living life doing what they love rather than what they think they should or ought to be doing.

Living authentically means being true to yourself and doing the bidding of your inner being.

When you live life in order to grow, develop and prove things to yourself, rather than to others, you develop an amazing resilience to the unpredictability of the world around you.

In fact, you begin to look at the world from a new and far more healthy perspective.

Rather than feel dread, disdain and disapproval of the constant upheaval in the world, you will come to experience wonder, appreciation and gratitude for a world in which there is infinite variety and possibility.

Believe it or not, with the right approach, living in a topsy-turvy world can actually be quite fun!