Flowing with Uncertainty
How To Navigate Uncertainty and Stay Grounded
One of the greatest lessons that comes with running your own business is dealing and handling uncertainty. Nothing is ever certain in life, but as an employee, the illusion of certainty is a bit stronger. When you are running your own company, you have no guarantee of clients, income, projects, that everything will work out…
Having now managed my own business for 7 years, I have lived the highs and the lows, the 5+ figure months, and the no income months, the ‘too many projects in one go’, and the ‘full desert nothing is happening’… This roller coaster has taught me more than anything I have ever learned in school.
In this article, I break down my core teachings and learnings about uncertainty.
On Control
There are two ways to deal with uncertainty: control and surrendering.
When we are faced with a situation, that feels and appears totally uncertain, our main reflex is to grasp, to hold on, to cling to something, to make things feel more solid and in our control.
For instance, we can lean into:
Delusion: Being overly optimistic as a way of avoiding the pain of uncertainty.
Obsession: Becoming totally obsessed to get the results we are after, sacrificing sleep, health, relationsthip to make things happen.
Forcing: Creating an internal and external pressure to ‘force’ things to work out our way.
Blaming: Finding points of references to blame for our situation.
Avoidance: Focusing on something else rather than confront what isn’t working, is uncertain, or isn’t going the way we want.
Control is a funny beast because on the moment, it can feel like empowerment - Now you are ‘making it work’. But that’s not how the world functions. You can’t make anything work. What you can do is take action, show up consistently, and send high vibrations, pray for the best. There are no guarantees.
This is an uncomfortable truth that we would rather not confront. Instead, we hide away and ignore the uncertainty, or we face it head on and ‘force’ things - as a way of feeling better about ourselves.
I have experienced both. Wether it is hiding under the bed (not quite) and hoping the uncertainty will go away or getting up early, crunching through the day and ‘making it work’ (which often didn’t work by the way). Neither of these feel great. The first method feels like avoidance and the second one feels like forcing & grinding.
What if there was another way?
On Surrender
While this control & forcing can yield some results, and at least is action-driven; it is also often being busy for the sake of being busy, hoping that any action will lead to something. The fear of uncertainty blurs our thinking and we lack the strategic, purpose-driven vision that is needed for great momentum.
The other option?
Surrendering. What does that look like? It is neither avoidance, nor forcing. It is not fighting the uncertainty, but embracing it. It is realising that within that uncertainty lies opportunities, potential, magic and so much more.
It is knowing that each obstacle, each challenge along the journey is a teacher that enables us to grow. Whatever lesson we haven’t yet learned, will show up again and again, until we have fully learned from it, and can embody those learnings.
The uncertainty reminds us that everything in life is both temporary and uncertain. That’s the very nature of life itself.
How do we embrace uncertainty, and move through it?
By taking aligned, intuitive, consistent action!
Not forced action, not desperate action, not ‘busy for the sake of busy’ action. But calm, grounded, intuitive action. This comes from a different place within you, not from the head but from the heart. Not from panic, but from trust. Not from fear, but from love.
Leading your life, and business with love and trust, instead of fear. Embracing the learnings that come from this uncertainty and being able to handle it.
Uncertainty is never the problem.
Our ability to handle uncertainty is the problem.
Uncertainty won’t go away. Our fear, avoidance, dread of uncertainty can turn into trust, joy, and surrender to uncertainty.
Build Trust
We can understand all of this intellectually and still struggle to embrace uncertainty. It makes sense as we are wired in a way, that doesn’t naturally make us embrace it.
We can learn to build that trust in Life, in ourselves, in the natural unfolding of events, to feel more grounded within ourselves during challenging phases.
These are some of the inner tools we can use to build this trust both in Life and in Self:
Abundance: Focusing our attention on everything that is abundant and free in our life.
Flow: Tuning into the natural flow and unfolding of events, instead of forcing.
Resourcefulness: Remembering challenges that we have overcome, that are proofs of how resilient and resourceful we are.
Intuition: Calming the mind and listening to our intuition to provide us with the next steps.
Acceptance: Unconditional acceptance of current situation, and taking action from a place of acceptance, and not resistance.
Perception: Redefining current situation - instead of hard or uncertain, as open, abundant and free.
Gratitude: Appreciating even the very small things in your daily life, helps to lift our energy and attitude.
Action: Still taking action supports us to feel empowered, and taps into our creativity. The main thing is for the action to be aligned, intuitive and not forced.
Trust is built one step at a time, by focusing our attention and energy on abundance, expansion, gratitude and intuition. Shifting away from the fear, and embracing, leaning into the uncertainty.
Last Thoughts
Mostly uncertainty is challenging because we resist it. It isn’t the uncertainty that is hard, it is our relationship with it. If we can find it within ourselves, to not resist it, and instead to lean into it, then we will relax, surrender and let go. From that place of surrendering, intuitive action will come more easily and naturally. This will yield to greater inner and outer transformation.
Thank you for reading,
Enjoy the journey,
Katie