Certainty is a red herring. Certainty is a false destination, like the Fountain of Youth. That doesn’t stop people from seeking it, though.

Uncertainty generates fear and anxiousness, so it seems natural to want to eliminate uncertainty whenever it pops up. The reality is, however, you can’t eliminate uncertainty, no matter how much you learn or how many unknowns you clarify.

Fighting against uncertainty is like trying to make water run uphill. You can approximate certainty in controlled situations using a lot of force, but you can’t change the nature of water or the nature of gravity. Uncertainty is a fact of nature.

Tonight I’ll talk about Certainty as one of the Three Cs of Caregiving in a panel through Stanford Healthcare, and how striving for certainty in an inherently unpredictable situation leads to stress, anxiety, fear, and bad decision-making.

In caregiving (and leadership) situations, striving for certainty needs to be replaced by striving for compassion.

When someone prioritizes certainty—when they are driven by a need to know the one true answer—they constrict themselves and whatever system they’re working in. Demanding certainty leads to:

• Obsessive behavior
• Over-analyzing, to the point of paralysis
• Second-guessing good decisions and the people that make them
• Falling into distrust, possibly even paranoia
• Ruminating to the point of destructiveness
• Anxiety-like behaviors

When someone prioritizes compassion in an inherently unpredictable situation, however, they get:

• Patience with themselves and others
• Acceptance of a reality that is, rather than a fantasy they wish for
• More trust in others, more trust in themselves, and more trust in the future
• Encouragement and positivity
• A broader view of possibility, leading to greater creativity in problem solving
• More resilience and flexibility because change is expected, not feared

This, of course, is easier said than done. If you’re naturally a person who is uncomfortable with uncertainty, embracing it and turning toward a compassionate mindset instead can feel like putting on a blindfold while walking on the edge of a cliff.

Like most skills, however, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Over time, you’ll see that when you demand less certainty and exhibit more compassion, you’ll get compassion back more often than not, and you will feel less anxious about the future.

Connect with me

Schedule a consultation session now or drop me a line.