How to Deal with Uncertainty to Thrive (Part 3)

Dealing with uncertainty to thrive continued!

Experience the world through an adaptability lens

Unless the brain learns something new, it what will happen is based on what it has seen and learned before.

That is why people default to certain behavioural patterns, especially under stress.

Some want to control the situation, others tend to see themselves as victims, claiming everything is out of their control and shutting down.

Our default patterns may serve to protect us in the moment. But ultimately, they may hinder our ability to adapt and respond in ways that a new situation requires.

Often, we realise this is the case only after an interaction in which our default patterns have caused friction in a relationship.

These can be missed opportunities to take a proactive approach to the situation.

What we call in NLP, cause and effect.

Underlying these patterns are mindsets and beliefs we hold, often unconsciously, that influence how we perceive reality and make us less flexible and adaptable to changing circumstances.

However, if we can recognise that we’re moving to our default mindset for stressful situations—signals such as sweaty palms or other physical reactions to perceived threats—and instead push ourselves to see multiple perspectives, we move into a world that offers more possibilities.

While status quo mindsets may be perfectly reasonable in some routine (or low-stress) situations, they are progressively less useful as circumstances become more complex and we’re under more pressure.

What becomes optimal then is for leaders and organisations to shift into adaptable learning mindsets

For leaders, one enemy of the adaptive mindset is a belief that it’s their job to have the “right answers” rather than knowing when to ask the right questions.

It’s the same trap that Zen Buddhism warns against falling into, thus urging practitioners to adopt what it calls the beginner’s mind, or shoshin.

“In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities,” according to this concept. “In the expert’s mind, there are few.”

What we now know is that this beginner’s mind is not a fixed personality trait or a skill available only to Zen masters; it is a learnable skill for everyone.

We can build ours through deliberate practice.

If leaders shed their “expert” status, they can navigate uncertain situations by collecting information in new and productive ways.

By shifting their mindset to encourage learning, curiosity, and openness to change, leaders can display the flexibility to find solutions.

Making such a journey requires awareness of your default mindsets, understanding when they are not serving you, opening up to what else may be true, and intentionally shifting into a new, adaptable mindset.

Self-awareness and reflection are critical components of adaptability.

Ways to build awareness include making a “to be” list—that is, a list of the values we want to embody—and setting your intentions in the morning, ahead of a busy day, or at work when things get challenging.

Reflecting at the end of the day about difficult moments also helps build an adaptable “unlocking mindset” for the future. The central issue is not that we experience anxiety or uncertainty—that will happen frequently—but rather whether we respond to those pressures in ways that lead us to do more of the same rather than learning and changing.