Your brain really, really likes to know what happens next.
Not because you’re controlling. Not because you’re bad at change. And not because you need to “be more resilient.”
Your brain is constantly using what it knows to anticipate what might happen next. Most of the time, that’s incredibly useful.
Until the answer is:
We don’t know yet.
Maybe your organization is restructuring, but nobody knows exactly what that means.
Maybe you’re waiting for test results.
Maybe someone you love has stopped responding the way they usually do.
Maybe you applied for something important and now there is nothing left to do but wait.
Or maybe several parts of your life have become uncertain at exactly the same time, because apparently uncertainty has never heard of taking turns.
Whatever the reason, not knowing can be surprisingly exhausting.
Uncertainty Gives Your Brain a Lot of Work to Do
When life is relatively predictable, your brain gets to rely on patterns.
You know roughly how your morning will go. You understand what is expected of you at work. You know how someone usually responds when you call. You have a general idea of what next month will look like.
Predictability doesn’t mean everything is good.
It means you have information.
Uncertainty takes some of that information away.
The American Psychological Association notes that when plans are disrupted and the future becomes unclear, stress and anxiety often follow. People also differ in how comfortable they are with uncertainty, which means two people can experience the same ambiguous situation very differently. APA has more about coping with the stress of uncertainty here.
That difference matters.
Feeling unsettled by uncertainty isn’t evidence that you’re handling something badly.
It may simply mean your brain is trying to make sense of a situation that does not currently provide enough information to make sense.
And So We Start Filling in the Blanks
Human beings are very good at creating explanations.
Unfortunately, when we’re stressed, the explanations we generate aren’t always especially comforting.
The meeting was moved to Friday. Something must be wrong.
My boss hasn’t responded. She must be upset with me.
They haven’t announced what the reorganization will look like. My job is probably going away.
Notice what happened there.
We moved from what we know to what we fear without much space between them.
That doesn’t make the fear irrational or ridiculous. Sometimes the thing we’re worried about really is possible.
But possible and known aren’t the same thing.
That distinction can become especially important during prolonged periods of uncertainty, when our minds have had plenty of time to rehearse outcomes that haven’t actually happened.
More Information Helps. Except When It Doesn’t.
When we don’t know something important, looking for information makes sense.
So we check.
And check.
And check again.
Email. News. Teams. The employee intranet. The medical portal. The application status page. The text thread.
Nothing.
Five minutes later:
Maybe something changed.
Still nothing.
This is one of those frustrating situations where a completely reasonable behavior can stop being particularly useful.
Information seeking can restore a sense of control when new information is actually available.
But repeatedly checking a place that has nothing new to tell you doesn’t resolve the uncertainty. Sometimes it just keeps bringing your attention back to it.
APA specifically recommends limiting repeated news checking during uncertain and stressful periods and putting some attention toward the things that remain within your control. Their free guide, 10 Tips for Dealing With the Stress of Uncertainty, is worth bookmarking if you’re currently living in the land of we’ll let you know when we know more.
Control and Agency Aren’t Quite the Same Thing
“Focus on what you can control” is common advice.
Sometimes it’s useful.
Sometimes it’s also spectacularly annoying.
Because the answer may genuinely be:
Not much.
You cannot personally decide whether your organization restructures.
You cannot make another person respond.
You cannot speed up a hiring committee.
You cannot force a medical test result to arrive.
And pretending otherwise can turn a difficult situation into an individual responsibility problem: If I were coping better, this wouldn’t feel so hard.
So instead of asking only:
What can I control?
It may be more useful to ask:
Where do I still have choices?
Those choices can be very small.
You might decide when you will check for an update instead of checking continuously.
You might ask a question.
You might tell someone you trust what’s happening.
You might make one plan for what you know today while leaving room to change it tomorrow.
You might decide that you don’t have enough information to make a decision yet.
You might also acknowledge that the situation is taking a lot out of you.
None of those choices eliminates uncertainty.
They do something different.
They restore a little agency inside it.
Structure Can Help When Certainty Isn’t Available
If you can’t make the uncertain thing become certain, it can help to make other parts of life a little more predictable.
Not because a morning routine will magically solve organizational instability, relationship uncertainty, health concerns, or anything else that actually matters.
It won’t.
But familiar routines can reduce the number of things your brain has to figure out while it’s already carrying something difficult.
APA includes routines and small controllable actions among its recommendations for coping with uncertainty. The CDC similarly describes stress as a normal response to new or challenging situations while noting that prolonged stress can affect health.
Maybe breakfast is boringly predictable.
Maybe Tuesday is always grocery night.
Maybe you take the same walk after dinner.
Maybe you write things down because your brain has enough to do without also being responsible for remembering that you’re almost out of toothpaste.
The goal isn’t to construct a perfectly optimized life.
It’s to give your brain a few places where it doesn’t have to wonder what happens next.
You Don’t Have to Make Uncertainty Feel Good
This may be my least favorite genre of advice:
Embrace uncertainty!
No.
Sometimes uncertainty is exciting.
Sometimes it represents possibility.
And sometimes uncertainty means you don’t know whether you’re going to have a job in three months.
Those experiences do not require the same response.
You are allowed to dislike not knowing.
You are allowed to wish you had answers.
You are allowed to be tired of adapting.
The goal doesn’t have to be becoming someone who cheerfully greets every unknown as an exciting opportunity for growth.
It can simply be recognizing what uncertainty is asking of you.
And perhaps giving yourself a little more support while you’re carrying it.
While You Wait
If you’re in an uncertain season right now, you don’t have to solve the entire future.
You probably couldn’t if you tried.
You can notice what you actually know.
You can notice what your brain has added to the story.
You can decide when seeking more information is useful and when you’ve reached the point where there simply isn’t any more information to find.
You can create predictability where predictability is available.
You can look for choices even when control is limited.
And when uncertainty is creating stress that feels difficult to manage, interferes with daily life, or feels constantly present, getting additional support is a reasonable next step. The National Institute of Mental Health has a free, straightforward guide to stress, anxiety, and when it may be time to seek more help.
You don’t have to know what happens next to take care of what is happening now.