Today is December 22 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “How often are you uncertain?
People who navigate the chaos are comfortable knowing that there is a high degree of uncertainty in life.
If you read the backstories of many people discussed in other Navigate the Chaos posts you will soon realize that many people were uncertain about their journey.
They were unsure when to start, they were unsure during their journey, and even as they reached their goal uncertainty remained with them at times. It’s perfectly normal to engage with uncertainty as you Navigate the Chaos.
Lev Isaakovich Shestov was a Russian existentialist philosopher, known for his "philosophy of despair.”
In his 1920 book All Things are Possible he wrote “The business of philosophy is to teach man to live in uncertainty; not to reassure him, but to upset him.” Being upset with uncertainty is most likely going to happen as you translate your dreams into reality.
Therefore, today’s question is ‘how often do you engage with uncertainty?’ Another way to ask the question is ‘how often do you work through getting upset with uncertainty?’
American theoretical physicist Richard P. Feynman noted "We live in uncertainty; it is of great value to realize that we do not know the answers to different questions. This attitude of mind- this attitude of uncertainty-is vital to the scientist, and it is this attitude of mind which the student must first acquire."
In today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous global marketplace, uncertainty of employment is a constant for many people.
To help people better understand the new realities of career development, authors Robert Pryor and Jim Bright published The Chaos Theory of Careers: A New Perspective on Working in the Twenty-First Century. In this 2011 publication Pryor and Bright introduce the chaos theory of career development that offers individuals a blank slate upon which to transform their current self to their possible self. Transforming from one’s current self to their possible self requires a strong belief in positive uncertainty.
In the preface entitled ‘Life is Uncertain’ Pryor and Bright write “Uncertainty reveals limitation and limitation signals vulnerability. But it also reveals something else – something about us that is less defensive and more positive, more hopeful. If uncertainty exposes our limitations of knowledge and power, it also suggests, at least, that there may be potentials within us and possibilities around us that we may currently be unaware of but that may be awaiting us if we would but have the courage to run the gauntlet of uncertainty; that is, to risk vulnerability and failure in the quest for opportunity and achievement.”
To deal with positive uncertainty, which involves complexity, change, and chance, H.B. Gelatt identified four major paradoxes that successful people who have navigated the chaos understand as they move forward in their career decision-making process:
Be focused and flexible about what you want.
Be aware and wary about what you know.
Be objective and optimistic about what you believe.
Be practical and magical about what you do.
Positive uncertainty is compatible with the new science and beliefs of today’s society and incompatible with yesterday’s decision dogma. It involves ambiguity and paradox because the future is full of ambiguity and paradox. In the future, it will help to realize that one does not know some things, cannot always see what is coming, and frequently will not be able to control it. Successful people remain positive amidst the uncertainty in order to create options as it allows them to act when one is uncertain about what they are doing.
In a July 2015 article published in Forbes entitled "Why Embracing Uncertainty Is Critical To Your Success," Margie Warrell wrote “Throughout our careers and lives we must continually assess whether we are letting our fear of the unknown keep us from taking the actions to move us forward. If you're not sure whether it is, then ask yourself what you would do if you weren't afraid of failing. The first answer that pops into your head will point you in a direction you need to go, albeit an uncertain one.”
To step into the unknown you will need to be comfortable with both taking a risk and the uncertainty involved with the situation. As discussed elsewhere in other Navigate the Chaos posts anyone that has ever achieved any level of success had to learn firsthand the words of President John F. Kennedy “Nothing worthwhile has ever been accomplished with a guarantee of success.” Navigating the Chaos has no guarantee. Know that as you try one strategy after another.
As Warrell noted “Too often we interpret our failure's as permanent inadequacies on our part and use them as an excuse to stick to what we know we're good at.” Yet, as Dr. Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology once said, “It’s not our failures that determine our future success, but how we explain them to ourselves.”
To help you better understand your relationship to the chaos and uncertainty that exists complete the following quiz that Bright and Pryor published in the back of their book.
Directions: Read each statement and circle each one where your response is YES.
Have you ever made a decision which then had some outcomes you had never thought of at the time of deciding?
Has fear of taking a risk ever prevented you from doing something important in your life?
Have you ever wanted something, obtained it, and found out you preferred something else?
Have you ever had the experience of seeing a situation one way and find out someone else sees it in a totally different way?
Have you ever experienced an unplanned event that had a big impact on your life?
When making a decision, do you sometimes just choose an option without worrying about whether it is the very best choice or not?
Have you ever found it an advantage not to know something?
Have you ever had a crisis or conversion experience that changed your life in some significant way?
Have you ever had the experience of being in either the right or wrong place at the right or wrong time?
When taking action, do you ever just follow your instincts or your intuition?
Have you ever relied on information when making a decision only to discover later that it was incorrect?
Have you ever distorted the truth either to yourself or to others?
Have you ever set a clear goal or a precise objective and discovered a better one along the way to the original goal?
Have any major decisions in your life been made on a basis that was not totally rational?
Have you ever had the experience of being told something personal about yourself, of which you were complexly unaware?
Do you ever act before you think as a way to investigate a situation or to make a decision?
Have you ever experienced a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy?’
Have you ever made a small mistake that resulted in a big problem later on down the line?
Have you ever found wishful thinking to be an advantage?
Have things occurred in your life that you never thought would have been possible?
Number of Yes: _______
If you answered yes to 12 or more you realize that life is indeed chaotic and uncertain. Knowing this can be a powerful force as you navigate the chaos.