Last year at one of my events at Henley Business School, Kimberley Hare, our speaker for the day, put a poster on the wall that read:
“Uncertainty is inevitable, insecurity is optional”
We humans have a fascinating relationship with certainty, don’t we?
So often we try to desperately hang on to what we know just because it is familiar.
I remember once hearing Richard Bandler (co-creator of NLP) say:
“The desire to stay with the familiar is the strongest force in the human personality.”
We fool ourselves that the known is safe and comfortable and the unknown is full of danger. And yet this perspective is so often our biggest downfall.
Take the current situation.
It is happening. There are things that are completely out of our control.
Yet we can take the mindset of a victim and lose our power. Or we can use the situation to evolve and become stronger.
Do you know what the biggest megatrend of our time is?
Renowned social forecaster Patricia Aburdene deeply researched this question and discovered that the quest for spirituality is the greatest megatrend of our era.
Gallup research found that 78% of people need to experience spiritual growth.
Why is this?
Because we are beginning to realise that no matter how much we chase external objects (money, power, possessions, experiences, etc.) none of it can ever give us what we really want.
We will NEVER find certainty (or security) in the external world because it simply does not exist there.
If the current situation does not convince people, then I wonder what it will really take?
The only true certainty is that there is no such thing as certainty.
And, of course, the fact that none of us are going to make it out of here alive!
The happiest, most content and high-functioning people, who experience life as fresh, rich, and fun (like we all did when we were little kids) live in the unknown.
P.S. And what about your plans for the future?
There is an old Yiddish proverb that says:
Man plans; God laughs
The plans we have made – life plans, business plans, financial plans – may well need to be re-written.
So, it is useful to remember that there is a lot of value in the process of planning and far less value in simply having a plan.
