Life is peppered with many uncertainties, many times it is impossible to gain full certainty. Humans are not generally very good at dealing with uncertainty, so we either avoid it or do all that we can to control it.
In recent years, I’d convinced myself that I was not very good at being spontaneous. The problem was that I’d overthought my decisions and this would lead to me talking myself out of doing things due to feelings of uncertainty. Each time we try to ‘deal’ with, rather than face uncertainty, we ‘lose’ or let it win.
In life we sometimes need to have ‘wins’ in order to gain confidence and positive experiences. A personal example is my reluctance of going to new walks alone. My mind conjures up lots of what ifs about getting lost or not choosing a ‘good enough’ walk.
One morning I was fed up with my indecisiveness and said to myself that I deserved a ‘win’. I gave myself 5 minutes to choose somewhere, whilst noticing but not listening to my brain trying to talk me out of it. Not only is walking in nature good for our mental and physical health, tolerating uncertainty helps to gradually reduce our intolerance of uncertainty and associated anxiety and as an added bonus, it feels good to succeed. One of my fears came true about it being too far and unsuitable. In reality, it was not a big deal and I simply turned around when I felt I’d had enough. The more we tolerate uncertainty, the more we feel liberated. It doesn’t have to be a big goal; aim small and build your way up.
Do you find yourself intolerant of the unknown in some way? Does this stifle your life in anyway? What is one small way that you could tolerate uncertainty? To gain your win for the day and build on your confidence? There are many ways in which CBT can help to understand the relationship between intolerance of uncertainty and anxiety and how this manifests as various behaviours aimed at controlling uncertainty. CBT can help to reclaim your sense of freedom around anxiety related behaviours.
