The Certainty We're Waiting For Isn't Coming

How to keep moving when uncertainty won't let up

Last week, I had several conversations with people who are struggling with decisions. This isn’t new to me. Helping leaders with decision-making is part of my gig, and the struggle is always present. But last week I noticed something different…

…a heightened level of fear driven by the heightened level of uncertainty.

Fear is always the underlying emotion when we are struggling to make decisions - what if we get it wrong? The difference I noticed last week is that people have reached a point where they are no longer just feeling it; fear is no longer the underlying feeling. It is the overt feeling, so overt that they are verbalizing it.

On the one hand, this is good because labeling our feelings helps us process them and move forward. But it also means that we’ve reached such a heightened level of fear that it is pouring out of us.

Is it any wonder, though? The economy is barely hanging on. Budgets are tightening. There is a war...multiple wars. The cost of living keeps climbing. And somehow, all the while, we still have to carry on. The quarterly goals still need to be met. The dog still needs to be walked. The food still needs to be bought and cooked. The weekly dashboards need to be reviewed. All the ordinary tasks of our lives have to continue while we carry the weight of the world that feels like it could tip over at any moment. So, yes, in this context, making the big decisions, the ones where millions of dollars are at stake, career-building decisions, life-changing decisions, the types of decisions we struggle with in “normal” circumstances are feeling extra hard right now.

I’m seeing a lot more Stuckifying behavior emerging. Requests for more data. Getting more input from more stakeholders. Putting things on hold until things settle down. More meetings to discuss the same thing. The level of activity that’s happening creates the illusion of work. When in reality, there is no actual progress.

The One Truth

The world has never actually been certain. It has only ever given us the illusion of certainty.

There is no settling down or going back to normal. Remember when we thought getting through the pandemic would return us to normal? It didn’t. The pandemic dissipated, but we didn’t have a reprieve because inflation, then a recession, now multiple wars, all disrupting economic stability, one after another after another. This is life in the BANI world. Systems that have worked reliably are suddenly disrupted, showing their Brittleness. Too many things are happening at once, so cause and effect are Nonlinear, and this intertwined mess is too Incomprehensible to know where to start fixing it. And all of this is driving up the Anxiety further paralyzing our decision-making because our brains don’t cope well with uncertainty.

There is a line in my upcoming book that I keep going back to this week, and it is this:

“…the brain can better cope with predictable misery than uncertain possibility.”

And this helps to explain why we are putting off decisions. At this moment, waiting to make a decision, as painful as that is, it is the space we know best, and there is some comfort in that… a false sense of comfort.

The One Insight

But here’s the thing, indecision isn’t free…there is a cost to it, and our brains are very good at covering up that cost. Right now, we are facing a lot of uncertainty, and our brains view uncertainty as a threat. When our brains feel threatened, it executes what we call the amygdala hijack. The amygdala (the oldest part of our brain that mostly operates on automatic responses) takes over, rendering the prefrontal cortex (the newest part of our brain where all executive function and decision-making happens) inoperative.

When the amygdala is in charge, the focus is on survival. All the energy goes into the here and now. We prioritize quick actions like meetings, creating reports, and presentations. Big decisions, strategic work, when our brain is in survival mode, are deemed a low priority, so we never get to them. But because we are so busy with the quick, here-and-now actions, it creates the illusion that we are productive. It falsely reassures us that waiting to decide is the right thing to do.

Here’s a quick story to illustrate this point. In 2025, I was working with a leadership team that was exploring the option of expanding to a new market. The research was completed, and a plan was formulated, but geopolitical uncertainties posed some risks. They decided to put the initiative on hold until things settled down. Fast forward to 2026, and a competitor is now dominating that market. The competitive advantage my client could have had is now lost, and if they want to move into that market, it is now more expensive to do so.

But my client isn’t alone in this; history is full of examples. Remember Kodak? Their decision to delay bringing their invention, the digital camera, led to the collapse of their business.

Indecision has a cost. We are good at spotting it in others. Our brains do a great job of fooling us into thinking that this cost doesn’t apply to us.

Insight into Action

If the certainty we’re waiting for isn’t coming, what do we do?

Verbalize the Fear: We tend to dismiss or suppress our feelings; most of us have been socialized to do so, especially in professional settings. But feelings don’t just go away because we hide them. In fact, the more we try to bury them, the stronger they get. Remember the amygdala hijack response that renders your prefrontal cortex inoperable? When we use words to describe our feelings, we help reactivate the prefrontal cortex…this is how we disrupt the hijack. Putting our feelings into words helps us move to more rational thinking.

Stay Firm on the Goal but Flexible on the How: Let’s say you are in Seattle and you’ve planned a trip to NYC. Your goal is to get to NYC. Your plan is to fly there. Now, let’s say that there was a severe weather storm that cancelled all the flights. If you are fixated on your plan to fly to NYC, there is zero chance you will accomplish your goal. But if you are fixated on the goal, that opens you up to different options. Perhaps you could drive? Bus? Train? This is how life works most of the time anyway. We plan, but how often do things go according to plan?

Small Testable Actions: In uncertainty, big leaps feel scary…they are scary. But big leaps are not the only way to get things done. Small actions can also get us there. So, ask yourself, what’s the smallest first step I can take? Then do that. See how it goes. Let that inform the second step and so on. Thinking back to our Seattle to NYC trip. Perhaps you try to drive, but you can only reach Utah before the storm makes it impossible to keep going. Maybe you have to wait a few days to get on a bus that takes you to a city that isn’t affected by the storm. Sure, it isn’t the direct trip you were planning, but you are making progress.

Get Unstuckifyed

Fear can make us feel alone, so if you take anything away from this week’s newsletter, let it be this - YOU ARE NOT ALONE (oof…did I just quote Michael Jackson 🤦🏽‍♀️). But seriously, we are all feeling the uncertainty. Despite all my training and research in this area, I struggle with uncertainty too. Our fear response to uncertainty is the result of millions of years of brain evolution.

Fear is our brain trying to protect us because it doesn’t want us to become lion food. To move from feeling to rational thinking, we need to put our feelings into words. Ironic, isn’t it?!

So the first, smallest step to get started with… verbalize the fear… activate the prefrontal cortex.

Till Next Time

Uncertainty isn’t a new problem, but it is becoming more intense. It won’t get any better. What’s within our control is getting better at working with uncertainty. We cannot keep waiting. We can’t keep stalling. We have to get on with it.

Thanks for getting Unstuckifyed with me.

Dr Dani