Keeping Cool During Uncertainty

Uncertainty—We all have to live with it, but how?

Almost Frugal's Kelly Rigotti is facing this issue as she finishes up her master's degree. She doesn't know what the future holds, so she decided to repost a question she asked when she first started her journey in 2008.

Making plans are difficult when you don't know where you're headed. In "Going Back to School" she asks (my emphasis added) :

So how do you set goals or make plans when you don’t know what is going to happen? Here are the two ways I handled it.

* Control what you can. OK, so I didn’t know if I was going back to school or back to work. But I did know that I would be signing my children up for reading classes in English, so I had to prepare and plan for that in my budget.

* Accept that you can’t control everything. You can call it giving yourself up to a higher power, accepting the inevitable, or just resigning yourself to the situation, but I find that accepting things helps when there is nothing else to do. There was a point at which the waiting seemed interminable. Stressing about it made it worse and certainly didn’t help the decision happen quicker.

How do you handle situations when you can’t plan for the future? How do you set goals when you don’t know what you’re aiming for?

Setting goals when you can't plan the future? Great question—and great solutions.

Control what you can and don't sweat what you can't, says Kelly. These tactics have helped me around many a dark corner. When things are really tough, I plan dinner. Hey, it's a plan!

Dare to dream is one I would add to the list. When I'm not sure, the sky's the limit, so I let myself imagine different scenarios.

Write it down is another one. As a writer, I tend to write these scenarios out. It gives me a better handle when I see all the possibilities on paper or the computer screen. I try to write out how I will feel about each possibility.

Start something new. This might seem an odd idea when you don't know what's ahead but it gives you something to concentrate on and keep your mind off that blurry future. Knit a new sweater, take lessons, join a book group, whatever gives you a temporary purpose and occupies your thought.

Get back to an old project. Back before you started school or took your last job or made a big move, there was probably something you didn't finish. Go back to it and start anew before you get busy with a new goal to keep you from it.

Relish the opportunity to not have a plan. It can be freeing (at least for awhile) and the anticipation of what comes next is exciting. Here's to the future, whatever it holds!

photo courtesy of Bixentro via Flickr's Creative Commons.