Being more comfortable with uncertainty

I used to spend a lot of time worrying about “what if” scenarios. Mostly I worried about what might go wrong in situations that were complete unknowns. Of course, most of those things never happened, but that wasn’t because I worried about them so much.

Unsurprisingly, my worries only tired me out rather than prepare me for what actually happened.

A lot of our worries come from our desire to control the outcome in times of uncertainty. We are attached to seeing that things lead to the outcomes that we want to see.

But, what if we can let go of that?

What would happen if we approached our life from a place of trust? Trusting that whatever happens, we would be able to handle it. At iPEC, where I did my coach training, they call this “trusting the process.”

An important part of trusting the process is realizing that all experiences have value. Releasing our expectations or attachments to a specific outcome is part of accepting that whatever happens is of value. And that whatever happens, you will learn from it. You can create a purpose from it.

When you look at finding a purpose (instead of a reason) behind something that is happening, you can ask yourself questions to help find the opportunity for growth from every experience. Rather than asking: “why is this happening to me,” you may ask “what will I learn that I can use in the future?”

Approaching situations from a learning mindset helps strengthen trust in yourself that whatever you may have planned and however committed you are, there is always an opportunity to change the plan.

Constantly evaluating, learning, and revising helps you to learn and grow. If changes don’t come quickly enough, or not in the way you would like to see, try trusting the process. This doesn’t mean sitting back and waiting. It just means continuously assessing and changing the plan as needed. And realizing that whatever the outcome, you can handle it!

Try to see outcomes as feedback on where you are and what you still may need to work on, as well as opportunities to celebrate things that are really going well. The latter is extremely important. With our human tendency to pay most attention to the negative stuff, we often forget to celebrate our successes!

I’d love to hear about your experiences with taking on a learning mindset!

Reach out today — it would be so great to hear from you.