"I just need to know." Some version of that sentence comes up all of the time with my clients. There are many different versions and I won’t be picky about the semantics. Things like :I need to know if this job is the right move; I need to know if they are going to leave; I need to know if I already made the wrong call, etc. Cert’re chasing certainty, and they are stuck on solving things that are likely not solvable in the way that they think. Time might be the only way to find the answers, and they are trying to get around that.
I understand the pull; I have the same natural tendencies. I also think the worry and control are aimed in correctly, mostly because we can’t really influence it no matter how we try. The distress usually is not coming from the situation being uncertain. It is coming from how hard you are working to make it stop being uncertain.
Why "I don't know" feels like an emergency
For many incredibly capable people, uncertainty doesn’t feel normal. It feels like a threat, one you have worked hard to eliminate. So if you are still sitting in that uncertainty with all of that hard work trying to figure it out, you feel like you failed. Over time, you learned that not knowing the answer was dangerous, and knowing it kept you safe and ahead. To you, not knowing became the same thing as failure, which was also categorized as unacceptable and the worst-case scenario. The way we think about things and the words we use actually have an impact on how we feel about situations.
So your nervous system started treating unfinished or open questions like something you need to fix. And when your brain flags something as such a big threat, it wants the situation resolved immediately. You want to escape as you would in an actual emergency; the only difference is… that you know it’s not an emergency. That is why you refresh the email, replay the conversation, run the same worry past three different people, and research a decision way past the point of learning anything new.
The catch is that most of the questions that matter will not have answers based upon this process. You cannot know how it turns out, no matter how hard you will it. You cannot get certainty about another person's future choices. And the harder you chase it, the more you teach your brain that the uncertainty really was the danger it suspected.
The cost
Constantly trying to resolve uncertainty is absolutely exhausting, and it creeps in to take over your life. It looks like decisions you never make, because nothing is a guarantee. Or reassurance that soothes the feeling for a bit but then comes back stronger. Or even like missing out on the present moment because you are figuring out your next steps, trying to predict a certain outcome.
The silly thing is it never actually gives you what you want. The certainty you get is fake, and what you are giving away is your time.
Nobody taught you this skill
Tolerating uncertainty is a skill, and not something we are born with, which means you can build it. It is true that some people seem more naturally good at it, those who somehow just go with the flow. That doesn’t mean we are stuck without the ability to work on this just because it isn’t inborn. It’s like a muscle you train at the gym with repetition.
It starts by catching your tells and finding what this pattern looks like for you. Things like reassurance texts, extra research, or mental rehearsal that you just can’t stop. The first step is figuring out your habit, because if we don’t know what it is then we definitely can’t work on it.
Next, you practice letting something go unanswered. This is going to be excruciating at first. You do not answer the "what if" and do not resolve it. You just let it sit there, and you feel the uncomfortable feeling rise, peak, and come back down on its own, without you doing anything to fix it. You repeat this process over and over again, no matter how terrible it feels. With each rep, your brain learns that an unanswered question is just an unanswered question, and that "I don't know yet" is not the same thing as "something is wrong."
Over time, the goal is to act inside uncertainty instead of waiting for it to clear. Maybe that’s making the decision without the guarantee, having the conversation without knowing how it will land, or moving while the question is still open. This is helpful because that is where nearly everything worth doing in an adult life actually happens. There is so much uncertainty in adult life.
If certainty is what you think you need
If you recognize your own version of this cycle, you fit right in here! This is also something that can be worked on with practice. You do not have to turn into someone who does not care how things turn out. That said, you can stop letting uncertainty be so debilitating.
If you want to work on this, let me know. We can schedule a consultation; no commitment needed.