How to get better at navigating uncertainty

Nir’s Note: This guest post is by Simone Stolzoff, a journalist, author, and TED speaker. His new book, How to Not Know: The Value of Uncertainty in a World that Demands Answers, is a guide to dealing with uncertainty at a time when our lives have never felt less certain.

---

For Twyla Tharp, the prolific New York dancer and choreographer, every day looks pretty much the same.

She wakes up at 5:30 a.m., takes a taxi to the gym, works out for two hours with her trainer, showers, has coffee and three hard-boiled egg whites, does an hour of calls, works in her studio for two hours, rehearses with her company, returns home for dinner, reads for a few hours, then goes to bed.

She was known for innovative, genre-busting dance pieces—yet her life conformed to a strict routine. Tharp attributes the creativity of her choreography to the regularity of her days.

“A dancer’s life is all about repetition,” she writes in her book, The Creative Habit. “Before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a box.”

It’s a similar lesson to what Nir Eyal learned in the Beyond Belief chapter on faith: the ritual of prayer imposes order on the chaos of everyday life.

In these incredibly uncertain times, rituals serve as anchors that can help you stay grounded amid all the changing winds.

This is your brain on uncertainty

Picture a research study with two groups of participants. Group one was told they had a 50% chance of receiving a painful electric shock. Group two was told they had a 100% chance of receiving a painful electric shock. Who do you think would be more stressed?

You might assume group two—at least group one had a chance of getting off shock-free. But researchers from University College London found the opposite to be true. Participants who had a 50% chance of getting shocked felt far more stressed. It’s somehow more comfortable to expect the worst than to deal with the worry of not knowing our fate.

In another study, researchers found that professional uncertainty takes a similar toll on our health as actually losing our jobs. We are biologically wired to avoid uncertainty. Think about it evolutionarily: if our ancestors heard a rustle in the bushes, but didn’t know the source of the sound, their uncertainty could have been lethal. But while avoiding uncertainty may have been adaptive in the jungle, today our discomfort with uncertainty can keep us paralyzed. To navigate these uncertain times, I like to think of a three-step process.

Find your anchors

Certainty in some aspects of your life makes it easier to hold onto uncertainty in others. In your personal life, perhaps your anchors are a commitment to a person or a place. In your professional life, an anchor might be a commitment to your values or a commitment to serving a particular customer.

By clarifying the aspects of your business that will remain constant amidst all that is changing, you’ll be better equipped to navigate the unknown. A telling example comes from Airbnb. In How to Not Know, I document how Brian Chesky, the founder of Airbnb, handled losing 80% of his business at the start of the pandemic.

Chesky knew the pandemic would be a period of unprecedented uncertainty for the company. So one of the first things he did was create a list of six guiding principles for himself: Be decisive. Act with all stakeholders in mind. Preserve cash. Be the hero, not the villain. Overcommunicate. Win the next travel season.

“In a crisis, you have to make principle decisions, not business decisions,” he said, reflecting on what he learned from the pandemic. “A business decision is a decision you make, predicting the best possible outcome. A principle decision is irrespective of the outcome.”

Like Twyla’s daily routine, principles became Chesky’s anchors as he steered the company through an uncertain future.

Focus on the next right action

In How To Not Know, I profile a crisis management expert named Meredith who gets brought into organizations when things fall apart. One particular story she told me has stayed with me. A large manufacturing firm called her after there had been an accident in their factory that led to several employees getting seriously injured. When she arrived at the company headquarters, the energy among the executives was frenetic.

There was so much to do. They had to issue a press release, communicate with investors, check in with the injured employees and their families, conduct safety inspections at the factory, make a plan for when they would resume production, talk to their insurance provider, and meet with current employees. The list went on and on.

Meredith got a giant piece of butcher paper and rolled it out over the long boardroom table. One by one she made a list of everything that needed to be done. Getting it out of the executives’ minds and onto the paper helped the team turn their tasks from amorphous anxieties into clear priorities.

When faced with uncertainty, it’s easy to be overwhelmed, but when we are able to separate what we can and can’t control, it allows us to start making progress. Instead of worrying about all that is unknown, we can focus on one task at a time, which in Buddhism is often called “the next right action.” By taking one next right action at a time, clarity emerges through the fog.

Choose curiosity over fear

One reason uncertainty can be so uncomfortable is because our brains have a natural tendency to catastrophize. It’s a hallmark psychological finding that losing something feels worse than gaining something feels good. So our natural inclination is to brace for the worst. But while uncertainty can be scary, it is also the birthplace of possibility. Nearly every scientific discovery, world-changing business, and mind-expanding piece of art began with someone’s willingness to engage with the unknown.

In moments when we perceive uncertainty as a threat, blood flows away from our brain towards our body as we prepare to either fight or flee. Yet, when we see uncertainty as an opportunity to gather more information, we enter what psychologists call approach mode—our blood vessels dilate, sending more oxygen to our brain. The terminology is apt. When we see uncertainty as threatening, we retreat. But when we’re able to turn toward uncertainty, we approach a new way of thinking.

Though uncertainty can be uncomfortable, we can choose to approach what we don’t know with a sense of curiosity instead of fear. Uncertainty gives our lives texture. Without uncertainty, there would be no mystery, serendipity, or surprise. We can’t know exactly how our lives will go, and therein lies the magic.

If you want to get better at building your uncertainty tolerance and get more practical tips like these, check out How To Not Know. In a world that grows more uncertain by the day, building your uncertainty tolerance is an increasingly vital skill.

---