Welcome in a VUCA world! If I tell you about volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, how do you feel? Are you perfectly at ease with that? Or on the contrary, you start to feel upset? Are you the one fighting and exhausting youself, trying to understand what’s missing ?
The good news is that you can learn how to deal with your thoughts and handle this kind of context in a better way. I used to experience that a lot in my corporate jobs, working on digital transformation projects. I drained myself, looking for hidden and hazardous meanings from each new strategies announced.
From these experiences, I’ve developped my own tool, in order to grow properly in this kind of context and to prevent to exhaust myself looking for uncertain meanings to events that did not even have one.
The more this world goes, the less we know things for sure. Everything can change from a day to another.
We only have predictions for the future and no certainty, because this reality does not exist yet. Every moment, our context, events can change.
So tell me, how do you want to evolve? Do you prefer to fight against all these changes?
Or do you prefer to learn how to deal with your context in a way that makes you feel better, and above all, that makes you be yourself?
Step 1 : Identify your thoughts
The first thing I suggest you do, is to look for your thoughts, especially when you feel confused ou in doubt because of something’s happening in your life.
Confusion, doubt and discomfort belong to the realm of feelings.
If you feel one of these, it’s because you just had a thought that triggered it: which thought?
Why are you in doubt? What do you have in mind that brings you into confusion?
Start with your circumstance. You might be tempted to say that this circumstance triggers this feeling, but a circumstance is neutral, and can be proven in a court of law. However, the thought you have about this circumstance is the one triggering the feeling.
What do you think about your circumstance? What comes to mind?
You might think you are losing control and that triggers insecurity.
You might think people are hidding things to you, and that triggers doute or fear that these « things » will impact your life.
What’s happening is that you CANNOT change your circumstance. BUT you have the power to change your thoughts about it.
Ask yourself why you have all these thoughts, where are they coming from? What do you make the circumstance mean for yourself? Is this a belief from your childhood, or a social or family belief? Are the thoughts helping you right now?
It is for you to choose, consciously, what you think about this context that leaves you in a place of uncertainty.
Step 2 : Create your future-self vision
Creating a future-self vision is about defining a vision or an objective for yourself, based on what you already know about your present context (not hypothesis). From my point of view, it’s important to understand that not knowing everything is your circumstance and you cannot change it. So really focus on what your currently know about your environment, your context and your own actions.
You have the answers for yourself in you: you know about your values, your aspirations and – from step 1 – your beliefs, whether you want to keep them or not. All this information will help you to define what is this future-self vision.
Identify a precise objective: what to YOU want and what can YOU do that will serve you in the coming days, weeks, months?
I now suggest you write this question at the top of a blank page and let your brain answer it. Write down everything that you can do and want and pick the most appealing objective.
Now make sure that you time bound it: when do you this to be done?
Step 3 : Take action
Once you have identified your objective, break it down into a list of actions you will do to achieve it. Then plan ahead, depending when the goal must be reached !
Now, to take action, you have to ask yourself about the feeling that will make you do it: is it determination? self-confidence?
These are my own fuel feelings, but maybe you have others, this is for you to explore and find out what will work best for yourself.
Ask yourself what are the thoughts you need to trigger this fuel feeling?
It can be a thought like « in my current life, I have a clear goal to achieve », which will drive you to feel determination. Choose your thought carefully as your brain knows that anything can change at any moment, and will try to freak you out. But you need to teach her that it is OK and that it does not prevent you to take action.
Keep in mind that you do not have the control over your context. The things you can change, to feel better, are YOUR THOUGHTS.
While changing your thoughts, you will change your actions and use this energy to create more value, instead of wasting it in doubt and confusion. 😉
