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It’s very uncomfortable for your brain to be in uncertainty. To not know. To be unclear on the answer. To not be sure that something is right. When you feel uncertain and are unable to make a decision, you start to feel stuck and your brain experiences tunnel vision (where it hyper focuses on the problem). In today’s podcast I am talking about what to do when you feel uncertain. There’s a magical question I ask my clients, when they’re in a state of not knowing (in other words uncertainty) that helps get them out of the problem so they can think clearly and make powerful decisions to move forward without guilt or anxiety. Tune in to learn more about how it works.
Topics in this episode:
The impact uncertainty has on your brain and your life
The importance of feeling certain before you make a decision and how to do that
Stop focusing on what you don’t know and redirect to what you do
Uncertainty kicks your brain into survival mode
Show Notes & References:
Need help making decisions you feel certain about? I will walk you through my inside-out approach to decision making that will guarantee you will feel right about your decisions. Schedule a free 60-minute call where I will explain the process and we will determine if you are a good fit by going to: www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book
Want ongoing support as a working mom? Sign up for the free 19-day audio series: How to be a present and connected mom. Each day you will receive an email with a downloadable audio of 5 minutes or less that will teach you a tool or strategy for being more present and in the moment. Click here to sign up and receive the first audio: https://www.ambitiousandbalanced.com/be-present-optin
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Transcript
Intro
Your brain craves certainty. It wants to know what to do next. It wants to know that you're making the right decision. It wants to know the answer to any question.
It's very uncomfortable for your brain to be in uncertainty, to not know, to be unclear of the answer, to not be sure that something is right. When you feel uncertain and unable to make a decision move forward.
Essentially, when you're feeling stuck, your brain gets very foggy. It has tunnel vision where it hyper, focuses on the problem.
And of course, this then creates stress and anxiety and overwhelm and confusion. All these things that you don't want as an ambitious person.
In today's podcast, I'm talking about what to do when you feel uncertain.
There's a magical question I ask my clients when they're in a state of not knowing. In other words, uncertainty - that helps get them out of the problem so they can think clearly and make powerful decisions to move forward without any guilt or anxiety or fear.
You ready to hear how it works? Well, then, let's get to it.
Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, the place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you're looking to feel more confident, decisive, and productive at both work and home, then this is the place for you. I'm your host, Rebecca Olson. Let's get to it.
Hello, working moms. I hope everyone is well today. I want to jump straight into our topic.
Today we're talking about certainty.
Our brains crave certainty.
It wants to know that things are going to work out, that, things will be okay, that we're making the right decision, that we're doing what's best for ourself, for our families.
Our brains want to know. They need to know. They're almost, like, desperate to know.
And there's a reason for this. Our brains don't like open loops, meaning our brains don't like not having an ending or a solution or a decision.
It's like this…have you ever started a not so great book or a, not so good movie, but have had the hardest time not finishing it? It's because your brain craves conclusion. It craves an ending point. No matter how bad the story is, your brain just needs to know.
Has your boss ever asked you for a meeting or maybe put a meeting on your calendar for the next day or a couple of days from now? And your brain just can't let it go? Like it stresses out? It wonders. You wonder what trouble you might be in, what you could have done that was wrong. It tries to figure out what this meeting is going to be about.
It needs to know. It's your brain trying to close that loop, trying to collude the situation so that it can rest.
Have you ever had a big decision that you've had to make? Maybe it's moving, or maybe you're thinking about changing jobs or you're deciding on a particular commitment.
I recently spoke with a woman who had been offered a promotion at her work, or at least the opportunity to go after it, and she had to decide if she wanted that.
Your brain wants to know the decision. It wants to close the loop. It wants to know the conclusion.
It just continues to think about it and mull it over and stress about it and talk endlessly about it to everyone in an effort to find a conclusion.
All of us experience this on big levels and even on daily levels. It's one of the reasons why checking off your to do list feels so good, because it feels like you're closing the loop. You've concluded something. You've put a period at the end of something, and that feels really good to your brain, because your brain then feels like it can move on.
And there's a few reasons why our brain really craves certainty or conclusion or closed loops. It's because your brain really needs to know the answer. It wants to know the decision. It wants things to be final and not open. It wants conclusion.
And it craves that because it craves certainty and clarity. When you know the conclusion, when you know the decision, when you know what's next, you can move on.
You can’t move on until the loop is closed.
You can decide how you're going to respond and what you're going to do based on that. Otherwise, you can't really move on. You can't figure out what you're going to do, how you're going to respond, what decisions need to be made for yourself, or what the next, decision is until the loop is closed.
So let me give you some examples. When I was feeling stuck, super dissatisfied in my job before I became a coach, I knew I wasn't happy. I knew I didn't want to stay doing what I was doing, but I didn't know what I wanted to do.
That was the open loop. What do I do next? Where do I go from here? What do I really want?
All of those questions were just swimming about in my brain all of the time, and I just felt completely stuck.
I couldn't find happiness until these questions were answered. I couldn't make plans. I couldn't go apply for jobs because I didn't even know what I wanted to apply for. I couldn't move on without answering these questions.
Let me give you another example. I have a client whose boss just doesn't seem to get it. She's had countless conversations with her about wanting new opportunities, about wanting to move up. It doesn't seem to be performance related because she continues to get bonuses and raises and kudos for all of her good work.
But she feels super stagnant in her career. And even though she's been talking to her boss about it and trying to create for herself opportunities, they're just not happening.
She doesn't really know what to do. She doesn't know how to handle her boss. She doesn't know if she should stay or if she should go. She doesn't know if she should fight for herself or just move on.
Decisions need to be made, but it feels really uncertain right now what to do.
I have another client that had to move out of her property due to poor living conditions, and that's a really long story that I won't go into at this moment.
But she had to essentially move out of her house very quickly due to some mold and some other living, situations. And from the time of the decision, the decision was made essentially between her and the landlord.
And the time that she moved out, it was like, four weeks. It really wasn't that long. And in that period of time, she also had to find a place to move because they didn't have a location to go to.
And so, what came with this move was like, a whole host of questions. Like, can we find a house to rent in the same neighborhood? Is my kid going to be able to go to the same school? Should we downsize and maybe save a little money right now?
Really big questions without a whole lot of time to dive into them with detail.
Moving is one of the most uncertain times that anyone experiences.
Life feels completely discombobulated. Everyone's rhythms are off. And on top of that, my client's having a lot of problems at work that really need her attention and her direction right now.
And the only way to get this move done was essentially to take almost two weeks off to pack up her family and move. I mean, talk about uncertainty. Her brain didn't know what to do, what to prioritize at any given time.
Should she be working? Should she be moving? Should she be packing? Should she be unpacking? Should she be more present with her kids right now?
So much uncertainty, so many questions and open loops.
Uncertainty comes up a lot with my clients that are looking for new work or are interviewing or getting job offers.
Should I take this job?
Am I going to be happier in this new job?
Is this going to be better than what I have?
Am I going to be disappointing my team?
These are difficult questions to answer with all of these sort of open loops in your head. And how does it feel to not have an answer, to not know what you should do?
The feeling for me is worry, anxiety, uncertainty. And here's the thing. How good are you at answering questions and making decisions and essentially closing loops when you feel uncertain?
It’s hard to make decisions from a place of uncertainty.
Let's go back to our examples and look at it. How good do you think you would be? Or how easily would it be for you to make decisions about where you want to take your career when you're feeling stuck and uncertain?
For my client who has the unhelpful boss. How easy do you think it is for her to figure out what to say to her boss, how to brainstorm ideas on what to do and how to get what she wants out of this company, when she's feeling super uncertain, when she doesn't know?
For my client that just went through the move, objectively speaking, this is a very stressful time of her life, more stressful than usual, with a lot of demands in every area of life and young children that need her.
How easy do you think it was for her to decide where to put her attention and her focus and where to spend her time without any guilt, where priorities should be?
How easy do you think it was for her to kind of weed through all of those decisions and priorities and demands when she's feeling uncertain, when she's feeling confused, when she's feeling anxious?
Obviously, I'm asking these questions very rhetorically because I know for all of us, the answer is it would be really challenging.
When you have a bunch of open questions, open decisions, open loops, things that don't have conclusions and you're feeling super, uncertain, It's very difficult to weed through your brain to pluck out the ideas and the thoughts and the solutions that might actually be useful to you.
Your body is experiencing survival mode.
And a big reason why this is so difficult is on some level, when you're feeling very uncertain, your body is experiencing survival. It's essentially in fight or flight.
I mean, of course there's no actual danger here, right? You're not going to be mobbed by a lion. You're not going to completely lose your job and have nothing for your family and live on the streets.
It's not actually fight or flight, but your body experiences the same vibration.
When you're in the midst of uncertainty, your body sends a signal to your brain that says, this is not good. You need to make a decision on this. You need to know what to do. This could be really, really bad, this might get worse.
And your brain gets all worried and it has tunnel vision. And it's not tunnel vision towards a conclusion or solution or a decision, but tunnel vision to the problem.
All your brain can see is the problem in the middle of uncertainty. It's literally a survival mechanism that your brain uses to help signal to you that you have some decisions to make and that there are some things that need to get done here.
Well, thank you very much brain. This feels pretty obvious, right? But this is a human experience. This is how your brain is wired in uncertainty, it moves you into survival. And in survival you get tunnel vision to the problem.
So when you're experiencing uncertainty and a lot of open decisions and things that need to get done, but there doesn't seem to be time for you to do it, or you're not making decisions for whatever reason, your brain goes into tunnel vision and it starts mulling over the problem over and over and over again and replaying the situation and conversations and problematic circumstances over and over and over and over and over.
It's exhausting.
This just creates ultimately more uncertainty. It makes it even more difficult for you to close the loop and make decisions and find conclusions.
It is normal to experience uncertainty.
One thing I want you to walk away with as you listen to this podcast today, is to know that this is very, very normal. All of our brains do this.
All of our brains get stuck in the problem and loop the problem in our brain, making it difficult for us to find solutions and make decisions, that feel really good and create a path forward. It's very normal and it's to be expected.
Making decisions based on your values and priorities.
Now, as a coach, it's my job to help your brain get out of uncertainty so that you can see your options. You can look at the problem with fresh eyes, so you can find solutions, so you can make decisions that are based on priorities and values that you feel really, really good about. That's my job.
Now, most people think that they can't get to this place of feeling certain and right until after the loop is closed, after the decision is made. I call this when/then thinking.
When I decide if I'm going to take the job or not, then I can relax.
When it's clear where we're going to move to and how we're going to do it, then I could start to pack and see a path forward, figure out what my next step is.
When my boss gives me some opportunities, then I will feel satisfied in my job.
When I make more money, then I will feel appreciated.
When I change jobs, then I can be happy.
When/then thinking.
It's when/then thinking. And it's not totally untrue. Certainly it's easier to feel more settled, more relaxed, happier, clearer after loops are closed, after you've made decisions, after you know the end of the story, right? There's no question.
But I also know that feeling clear and certain now is going to help clear the fog in your brain so you can in fact, make decisions, close loops, and checkboxes faster, more efficiently, and with greater clarity.
So here's the thing. If you're looking for a new job or you're just trying to make a decision on if you should look for a new job, you don't need to feel certain about that decision in order to move forward, but you can feel certain in other areas of life.
And this is one of the key questions I ask my clients all of the time.
What can you be certain of?
When they're in the midst of uncertainty, when they're unsure and they're feeling stressed about what to do, I ask them even without having an answer to if you should be looking for other work or if you should apply for that job, what can you be certain of?
That's the question so answers like this would pop up.
I could be certain I'll figure it out. I'm not going to be stuck forever.
I could be certain that I will make decisions that are good for my family, that I will take them into consideration.
I can be certain that if the job doesn't work out, I could always just look for the next one.
I can be certain that I am hireable and someone wants the skills that I offer.
I am certain that I'm going to come home every day and I'm going to love my kids, and I'm going to cuddle them and be there and snuggle with them at bedtime and love every moment of it.
I can be certain that I will always do my best and be committed and dedicated to whatever job I have.
Can you feel the energy behind these thoughts, behind these statements, these beliefs?
Do you think that in the midst of a job change for yourself, you could actually believe these things?
And if you did believe them, you did focus your brain on these things that feel certain, how different do you think it would be when you're approaching your job search?
Let's go to one of the other examples. Your boss or your company isn't giving you the opportunity that you want. Even in the midst of that, what can you be certain of?
I am certain that I can always look for other work, which means I'm not really stuck.
I am certain that I could have a daily conversation with my boss if I wanted to about this.
I'm certain I will not stop advocating for myself.
I'm certain that I'm not the only one that struggles with this at this company. This isn't just a me issue.
I'm certain it's not my job performance because I continue to get rewarded.
Can, you feel the difference in these statements?
How different do you think it would be for you to problem solve how to get more opportunities at your work if you were focused on these beliefs instead of all of the uncertainty and the unknown?
Let's bring it down to just a simple daily experience that I'm sure we all have.
Even though you don't know what to prioritize today, what can you be certain of when it comes to your to dos and your priorities?
I could be certain that I will at least get one thing done today.
I can be certain that I will make movement forward to check things off my list. Even if I don't get through everything.
I could be certain that I'm not going to get fired if I don't get everything done today.
I am certain that this is not a life or death situation.
I am certain that I can just decide and do something.
I'm certain that I am a good person and a good employee, even if I don't decide to do the perfect right thing.
Can you feel the energy, the certainty in these thoughts. This is the energy, this is the emotion that you want to be in when you're problem solving, when you're making a decision, when you're trying to check the box, close the loop.
The driving force behind the decisions.
You don't want that feeling of certainty to come after the decision. You want it to be the driving force behind the decision.
And the reason this works is because what we're doing is we're taking your brain's focus off the 5% of the unknown, the uncertain and putting it instead in the 95% of what is known and what's certain.
And your brain, wherever you focus, it creates energy behind that.
So when you are feeling stuck and uncertain and you're not sure what to do and you feel anxious and overwhelmed and inadequate and confused, it's really hard to make decisions and to find a path forward in that energy when that's what you're experiencing.
But when you're feeling certain, even not about the thing itself, but you just feel certain and you feel grounded and you feel confident and you feel possibility, you're going to think clearer, you're going to make more decisive decisions on how to move forward.
You're going to problem solve differently, you're going to ideate differently. That is the energy you want.
When you're trying to close loops, you have the ability to direct your brain. Thoughts happen all of the time to you.
I like to tell my clients that they can't always control their first thought about something, but they can always choose their second.
They can always choose to redirect their mind to thoughts that make them feel good, happy, connected, grounded, confident, like an expert, certain - all of these emotions and energy that you want to be in in order to create a successful, ambitious and balanced and happy working mom life.
When things feel uncertain, redirect your brain to what you know.
Even in the midst of this time, I guarantee it's going to change your energy, clear up some of the fog in your brain and allow you to make a more powerful, decisive decision.
I know sometimes big life decisions feel super overwhelming and you don't want to get it wrong.
And you also don't want your brain to be the only brain thinking about this decision. And for sure your partner or your friends are probably done hearing about it.
That is where I come in.
If you've been mulling over a decision, maybe it's a decision to change jobs or go after something different or be a stay at home mom or start a business or maybe you've just been mulling over like, why am I not happy? I have everything I want, I'm still not happy…
If you have been feeling stuck and you want my brain to help you get yourself out of that stuckness, to help you make a decision that you feel 100% about, then I encourage you to take me up on one of my free breakthrough calls.
This is a call where you and I connect one on one and talk about where you feel stuck, what it is you want, and I'll explain exactly how I'm going to help get you there in coaching.
Book your FREE call.
If you want to book that call, you can go to www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book. That's going to take you to a little form where I get to know you a little bit. You tell me where you're at, and then it'll take you directly to my calendar where we can schedule a time to connect.
Working moms, don't stay in uncertainty.
There are so many things you can be certain about, even if you don't know this one thing. Redirect your brain. Take control of your second thought, and reach out for help if you need me.
Alright, working moms, let's get to it.
