Living in Uncertainty
6/24/24
Do you ever have periods in your life where you don’t know what’s going to happen next? You’re just stuck... waiting to get an answer, even if it’s bad news. The fact that you don’t truly know anything is enough reason to feel incredibly anxious! Whether it’s waiting on a decision for a job interview, or the potential makeup/breakup after a bad argument, or even a matter of life and death for someone close to you, being in this spot just plain sucks! You can try to distract yourself as much as you’d like, but ultimately the thought always comes back to haunt you. And If you try to suppress the feeling in front of others and put up a brave face... you’ll probably be able to fool them. But there will always be that one person that eventually realizes something’s off and asks the dreaded question… “Are you okay?” You wish the answer could be as simple as good or bad, but the truth is that you don’t know… yet. Can you relate to this? Here’s 3 tips to help manage this period of uncertainty.
1. Stay physically present in your life.
It may be days or weeks before you get an answer, but your life doesn’t pause until then. You still have duties and responsibilities so remember to take care of them instead of laying in bed an anxious mess. There’s a time for rotting in your bed and this isn’t one of those times. If you keep up on the responsibilities in your life, you’ll come to find that you feel better doing that workout, picking up that extra shift, and hanging out with that homie you were thinking of bailing on. You may not be mentally 100% but just showing up for your responsibilities makes you physically 100%.
2. Catch yourself going down the rabbit hole, check yourself mentally.
One of the most common things we do when we’re in this uncertain period is mentally check out and go down a rabbit hole of 10,000 directions. We do this because our mind is attempting to find certainty in the uncertainty. We’re waiting for an answer that may realistically be like 3 choices, but we’ll think of the wildest and worst case scenarios because we can’t control ourselves. I’m not saying to suppress your feelings until you get an answer, but check yourself when you realize you’re going down the rabbit hole. Think about a few realistic outcomes and leave it at that. The more you ruminate and catastrophize, the worse your anxiety becomes.
3. Make peace with the fact that you may receive bad news.
Let’s be real here. You may actually receive some bad news. You can prep yourself as much as you’d like, but the reality of your fear coming to life could still be totally devastating. The good news is that once it happens, you aren’t living in uncertainty anymore. You’ve received the answer even if it wasn’t what you were expecting or hoping for. So now we can focus on THAT problem instead of the anxiety leading up to it. This is the time where we grieve and process our emotions because we have something rooted in reality causing our distress instead of just uncertainty. If you want to rot in bed for a day, that’s okay! Take a rest day, call out of work, do what you have to do to feel your emotions about this outcome. When you’re done grieving, get back out there and kick ass again.
It isn’t easy living in a period of uncertainty, but we have the power to not allow the unknown to overwhelm us. There are plenty of certainties you have control of so remember to focus on those. Focus on staying present, focus on realistic outcomes without going down a rabbit hole, and focus on overcoming the challenges associated with a potential negative outcome.