Learning to deal with uncertainty is like a muscle. If you want to get stronger, you have to keep exercising regularly. If you take too much time off, your muscles will atrophy quickly. This metaphor rings true when stepping into any arena of life.
Once you start to take some baby steps toward an uncertain future, you’ll muster up a bunch of energy to try something you’re not used to doing. You’ll either get a quick win or you’ll experience some sort of rejection.
If you get a quick win, you’ll be tempted to just pat yourself on the back and avoid facing uncertainty again in the future.
You saw that it worked, but you also felt that uneasy feeling beforehand and you’re not sure you want to keep going through it over and over. If you get rejected or the action you take doesn’t work, you’ll want to avoid taking action again because you take rejection and failure personally.
Either way, you’re not gaining momentum, which is the most crucial element to facing an uncertain future. Rather than periodically escaping your comfort zone from time to time, it’s easier long-term to make discomfort your default state for a while.
In any uncertain pursuit, there’s a pain period you have to go through and it’s unavoidable. So don’t try to avoid it.
