Uncertainty Is Normal
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Hello, most awesome one. I'm Ahyiana Angel and you're listening to the Quit Playing Small podcast, your space for inspired thinking, encouragement, and having a good old time with me. Welcome, welcome, welcome. If you have never joined us before, thank you for deciding to grace us with your presence now. I appreciate you and today we're gonna be chatting about uncertainty and the truth is we all need to embrace it as much as we want to run from it.
It is so normal. It's in our every day, and most of the time we overlook it. And while it can be intimidating, it's a part of life. It's the part that we can't control. And for so many, that's the real hard part. When venturing out to do something foreign and accomplish greatness, there will always be uncertainty.
Uncertainty, it can cause us to question ourselves. It definitely can. And if you're second guessing your plans or wondering if you can really achieve these things on the lofty list that you set forth, you're not alone. Whether it be the little voice in your head or the chatter of others when you're not feeling as confident as you once felt about something that you really, really had high hopes for, that's normal.
It's definitely normal. That's fear. Trying to overpower you, trying to overpower your thoughts. Force you to alter your plans, maybe even quit. Don't. Use your internal strength to block out that fear, and to keep going. How can I keep going? You may be wondering. So Christine Carter, a senior fellow at the Greater Good Science Center, wrote a very useful article for the Greater Good Magazine.
She wrote this article during the height of the pandemic, and it's called "Seven Ways to Cope With Uncertainty," and although this article came out in 2020, it is still very fitting now today, uh, we are, I guess, still in the midst of a pandemic. It's fluctuating, things are happening, but everybody's still feeling their feelings and I.
Post-pandemic, even though I just said we're still in it pretty much, but you know what I mean? Post quarantine, post lockdown. Um, I think we're all trying to. Grapple with and understand ourselves in a way that maybe we hadn't really put that much emphasis on before. And so this is just another layer of the self-work that we're all doing to just be the best versions that we can be of these people that we are.
So in this article, Christine details seven Ways to Deal with Uncertainty. And I definitely think you should check it out because I am just gonna run through the, the top line, um, items that she's mentioning. But she goes into a little more detail and explains what she's talking about with respect to each item.
So Google it. It is called Seven Ways to Cope with Uncertainty, And let's just dive into those seven ways. First up, don't resist, Then there is invest in yourself. Next up, find healthy comfort items. Don't believe everything you think. Pay attention. Stop looking for someone to rescue you. And last, find meaning in the chaos.
As you can see, despite not knowing every scenario or outcome that will cross your path, you still have the ability to take action and choose how you respond to uncertainty and I think the more that we embrace the fact that uncertainty is always going to live with us, it is that thing that is never going to leave our side.
The more comfortable we will be leaning into the uncertainty and. Letting go of that need to know everything, that need to control things that need to prove yourself on a certain level, because uncertainty takes that out the game, right? When things are uncertain, we have nothing to prove. It's like, at least that's how I look at it.
You think about when we were all sitting at home dealing with the biggest, looming uncertainty of just where was this world going? Who felt like they had something to prove in that moment? I know I didn't. Most of us didn't because we were really more so concerned with what was happening around us and surviving.
We were all really in survival mode. And so that worry about, you know, not knowing what's happening, but trying to control it. That went out the window because we all realized that we had no control over what was happening to us. And I think for some of us, that was maybe our first lesson in surrendering.
Surrendering when things are chaotic. Surrendering when things are happening that we don't understand. So let's lean into uncertainty in a way that's familiar to us. Because we've been there before and we know that we can release, we can surrender and things can still be okay. Thank you so much for spending time with me today.
I hope that you enjoy the rest of your day. I hope it's beautiful, filled with amazing things and experiences and as always be well.
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