Living with Uncertainty...

... not fighting against it (even though we want to!)

Why we don’t like uncertainty

It’s common to want to replace things in our lives that are uncomfortable, disconcerting or somehow negative, with something more comfortable, reassuring and positive. Who wouldn’t want that?!

A lot of the work I do as a coach involves working on this, either very practically concerning ‘things’ in our lives, or even say a relationship,  or emotionally / cognitively (the way we think and feel about ourselves is often one of the most complicated relationships we have and is usually more harsh than we might realise.)

Why we can’t remove all uncertainty

But sometimes, something falls into a camp which can be difficult to remove or replace.

One of those is most definitely uncertainty, often our invisible nemesis to progress and something we’d all like to remove in exchange for ‘I know how this will work out’.

It’s normal to feel this way, humans are hardwired to dislike uncertainty – it represents possible danger or threat (hopefully less likely in the ‘is there a predator in that hedge about to eat me’ kind of way, but probably in a more ‘will my ego or pride be hurt by not knowing for sure what will happen’ kind of way).

Right now as I write this in March 2026, there feels like a greater degree of uncertainty than ever in our wider landscape, politically and economically. It is very likely that many of us will be feeling all of those things above to a more heightened degree – even more disconcerting, uncomfortable and negative. And on this scale, when we feel powerless, it can impact our decision-making on a much smaller scale in our daily lives: we can wonder ‘what is the point?’ or ‘everything will change again even if I do decide’, leaving us in a no-man’s land of not managing to live with uncertainty.

How to live with uncertainty (not fight against it)

The truth is you’ve already navigated a huge amount of uncertainty in your life to date, whether you’ve thought about it at any length or not.

Some things may have played out exactly as you thought (e.g. made an offer on a house, gone through the painful buying process, moved in) or not (e.g. made an offer on a house, pandemic results in chain breaking down, end up moving somewhere else entirely 10 months later!). That second one was my personal experience. There was a huge amount of uncertainty throughout that time, and yes of course a global pandemic is quite an extreme example, but there are smaller ones happening all the time around us. I try out a new recipe, expecting my dish to look like the one in the photo on the recipe card and to taste delicious. Sometimes it does (ish!) and sometimes it doesn’t, but I don’t let the uncertainty of what my dish will look and taste like stop me from trying. (I fully understand the stakes are low in this example, but I’m trying to make the point about living with uncertainty happening already all around us).

When the stakes are higher, like a career change, or the move house to a new area, we default to wanting to remove all and any uncertainty before we proceed.

We want to feel sure before we decide. Again, normal, but again, not fully possible. We don’t get to access complete certainty in advance.

We can absolutely try to boost our odds (we visit the area we want to move to, we do some research, we try to connect with those already living there etc), but the uncertainty of ‘is this the right place for me to live’ and ‘will my house move experience go smoothly’… well, that unfortunately remains to be found out.

I get this isn’t easy. In fact it can feel like a deeply frustrating catch-22. If we try to get absolute certainty, we don’t take action. When we don’t take action, we tend to overthink. And continual overthinking erodes our self-trust.

Managing uncertainty and moving forward

So what on earth are we supposed to do then?!

We are all navigating our complicated (and uncertain!) lives as best we can. If we can focus on what really matters to us now (not what used to matter, or what we think is supposed to matter) we can really focus on what desired outcomes we are trying to achieve. Because there is no avoiding that we need to do something for those to have a chance of materialising.

Then the not-so-comfortable bit – accepting some level of risk / possible fall out is unavoidable (sometimes low stakes like a tasteless mess, or sometimes higher like being turned down for a role we really wanted).

Then focusing on the next step, rather than the whole thing at once. And finally, trusting yourself that you will respond and manage to what happens next, just as you have done with everything else to date – the good, the bad, and the uncertain!

I really do understand that this sounds easy and simple but it is often a lot harder in real life practise. This is exactly what I am here for – please do get in touch for a no-obligation chat about how my coaching can support you with your relationship with managing uncertainty whilst still managing to take action, build your self-trust and move towards those desired outcomes - kathryn@kbmindfulcoaching.com.