A Proven Guide on How to Deal with Uncertainty

Learning how to deal with uncertainty is perhaps one of the most essential skills for modern life. Life can sometimes feel like you are the captain of a small ship sailing in a very thick fog. You can’t see the shore, you can’t see the stars, and you don’t know what lies ahead. That feeling—that lack of knowing—is uncertainty.

Our brains are wired to dislike this feeling. They are prediction machines that crave safety and certainty. When the future is a question mark, it’s natural for our minds to fill in the blanks with worry and anxiety. This is a key reason why coping with uncertainty can be so challenging.

But what if you didn’t need the fog to clear to feel safe? What if you had an anchor you could drop, right here, right now? This guide will not offer you a crystal ball, but it will offer you an anchor. These are 4 proven steps on how to deal with uncertainty and find your inner calm, no matter how foggy it is outside.

Step 1: Find Your Oars (Focus on What You Can Control 🚣)

When we are lost in the fog, we can waste all our energy worrying about the fog itself—when it will lift, how thick it is. This is exhausting and achieves nothing. The first rule of how to deal with uncertainty is to stop worrying about the fog and start focusing on your ship.

• Why it works: This technique, inspired by Stoic philosophy and used in modern therapy, drastically reduces anxiety by shifting your focus from what is outside your control to what is within it. It gives you back a sense of agency.
• How to do it:
  1. Take a piece of paper and draw a circle in the middle.
  2. Inside the circle, write down all the things related to your situation that you can control (e.g., “My effort,” “My attitude,” “How I speak to people,” “My daily routine”). These are your oars.
  3. Outside the circle, write down all the things you cannot control (e.g., “The final outcome,” “What other people will think,” “The economy”). This is the fog.
  4. Make a conscious decision to put 100% of your energy only into the things inside the circle. This is a powerful step in coping with uncertainty.

Step 2: Drop Your Present-Moment Anchor (The 1-Minute Grounding ⚓)

When the mind is spinning with future worries, the most powerful antidote is the present moment. Your anchor is always with you.

• Why it works: Mindfulness pulls your attention out of the imagined, anxious future and into the real, physical safety of the “right now.” This simple act can instantly calm a racing mind, a core skill for anyone learning how to deal with uncertainty.
• How to do it:
  1. Pause, wherever you are.
  2. Say to yourself, “I am right here, right now.”
  3. Bring all of your attention to your feet. Feel them on the floor. Feel the solid ground beneath you. That feeling is real. That is your anchor.
  4. Take three slow, deep breaths, and with each breath, imagine your anchor dropping deeper into the calm ground. If anxious thoughts arise, our guide on how to calm anxiety can be very helpful.

Step 3: Navigate by the Next Wave (Shrink Your Timeline 🌊)

Uncertainty makes long-term planning feel impossible, which can lead to paralysis. The key is to shorten your timeline from the entire ocean voyage to just the very next wave.

• Why it works: It makes life feel manageable again. Instead of being overwhelmed by the whole journey, you only have to focus on one small, achievable step. This is a practical method for handling uncertainty.
• How to do it:
  1. Forget about next month or next year. Ask yourself one simple question:
  2. “What is the one thing I can do today that moves me in the right direction?”
  3. Maybe it’s sending one email. Maybe it’s going for a 10-minute walk. Maybe it’s making a healthy meal.
  4. Your only goal is to navigate that one wave successfully. That’s it. This approach is fundamental to how to deal with uncertainty without feeling paralyzed.

Step 4: Trust Your Compass (Embrace “Good Enough” 🧭)

In the fog, you cannot wait for a perfectly clear, 100% guaranteed path. You have to learn to trust your compass and take a step.

• Why it works: This challenges the anxiety-driven need for complete certainty. It builds self-trust and resilience by teaching you that you can make good decisions with “sufficient” information, rather than waiting for “perfect” information that may never come.
• How to do it:
  1. Acknowledge that you will likely never have all the answers.
  2. Gather a reasonable amount of information for your decision.
  3. Listen to your internal compass—your intuition, your values, your past experiences.
  4. Make the best choice you can with what you know right now. Trust that you are resourceful enough to handle whatever comes next.

You Are the Captain of Your Ship

The philosopher Alan Watts once said, “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” Learning how to deal with uncertainty is not about fighting the fog, but learning to dance with it, to navigate with skill, even when you can’t see the shore.

If the fog feels too thick and the sea too stormy to navigate alone, a conversation with a counsellor can be like turning on a lighthouse. It can provide the light and guidance you need to find your way.