{"id":10351,"date":"2018-10-01T06:00:34","date_gmt":"2018-10-01T10:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/?p=10351"},"modified":"2018-09-20T14:55:50","modified_gmt":"2018-09-20T18:55:50","slug":"stay-calm-face-uncertainty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2018\/10\/stay-calm-face-uncertainty.html","title":{"rendered":"Making Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-10411\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2018\/09\/work-2005640_1280-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"work-2005640_1280\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/>Jack was passed over for a promotion. When he asked why, his boss said, &#8220;You have trouble making decisions in the face of uncertainty. I need someone whose emotions won&#8217;t cloud their judgment. Someone who is willing to move forward under pressure. Unfortunately, I don&#8217;t think that person is you.&#8221; So what does Jack need to work on when it comes to positioning himself for promotion?<\/p>\n<p>To begin, Jack has to work on staying calm in the middle of uncertainty. If Jack gets emotionally worked up and begins to fear things that could happen or go wrong, the thinking part of his brain disengages. He can easily get worked up by thinking of the all the possible negatives associated with a decision or uncertainty. He would do better if he could focus on the positives. So he is practicing turning his attention to one or two positives when he feels overwhelmed. This shift in\u00a0focus\u00a0calms him down and he can think more clearly.<\/p>\n<p>Next Jack has to realize that he will never be completely certain of any decision he makes. Most of us gather all the facts we can and then decide. So for Jack, he needs to work at getting informed and then act. He\u00a0can&#8217;t know or control all sides of a decision. Sometimes mistakes happen. Most times, he will\u00a0have to move forward with what he\u00a0knows and step out.<\/p>\n<p>When there is a problem, Jack gets singularly focused. But this stresses him out. Instead, he can recognize a problem, but not dwell on it and control the part of the process that he can. This involves learning to\u00a0trust his gut and go with what his experience and information tells him. If his direction doesn&#8217;t work, he can have a back up plan.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, Jack needs to look at what is making him so indecisive. Is he afraid to make a mistake? Afraid of the consequences that come with decisions? Worried that he will let someone down? Does he want to please people too much? Whatever the cause, he needs to fix it, maybe with brief counseling or coaching.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the day, Jack\u00a0needs to take a deep breath and say, &#8220;I did the best I could. I worked hard and tomorrow is another day.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jack was passed over for a promotion. When he asked why, his boss said, &#8220;You have trouble making decisions in the face of uncertainty. I need someone whose emotions won&#8217;t cloud their judgment. Someone who is willing to move forward under pressure. Unfortunately, I don&#8217;t think that person is you.&#8221; So what does Jack need&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1057],"tags":[3064,314,3085,2589,2188,1060],"class_list":["post-10351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-work-relationships","tag-decision-making","tag-emotional-intelligence","tag-promotion","tag-staying-calm","tag-uncertainty","tag-work-relationships-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Making Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2018\/10\/stay-calm-face-uncertainty.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Making Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jack was passed over for a promotion. When he asked why, his boss said, &#8220;You have trouble making decisions in the face of uncertainty. I need someone whose emotions won&#8217;t cloud their judgment. Someone who is willing to move forward under pressure. Unfortunately, I don&#8217;t think that person is you.&#8221; So what does Jack need&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2018\/10\/stay-calm-face-uncertainty.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Doing Life Together\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-10-01T10:00:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-09-20T18:55:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/files\/2018\/09\/work-2005640_1280-300x200.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Linda Mintle\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@drlindamintle\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Making Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2018\/10\/stay-calm-face-uncertainty.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Making Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty","og_description":"Jack was passed over for a promotion. When he asked why, his boss said, &#8220;You have trouble making decisions in the face of uncertainty. I need someone whose emotions won&#8217;t cloud their judgment. Someone who is willing to move forward under pressure. 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Dr. Linda\u2019s fun personality and expertise comes through whether she\u2019s helping her audience stress less or make peace with their thighs! Dr. Linda has her Ph.D. in Urban Health and Clinical Psychology and is a national expert on mental health. She has specialized in the treatment of eating disorders, anxiety, depression and pain management. With 30 years of clinical experience working with couples, families and individuals, she brings her common-sense approach to people who want to live in positive mental health. Dr. Linda is also a bestselling author with 21 book titles to her credit, a radio host of the Dr. Linda Mintle show, professor, national speaker, winner of the Mom\u2019s Choice Award, a national news consultant, featured writer for Beliefnet and hosts her own website. Her academic appointments keep her abreast of current research in her areas of expertise. Her media experience includes seven years as the resident expert for ABC Family\u2019s Living the Life television show and regular appearances on network television and radio. It is often said that being with Dr. Linda is like having coffee with a friend. She makes the complicated issues of relationships and mental health easy to understand and applicable to everyday living. The ease she has with people, coupled with her clinical training and experience makes her a sought-after speaker on college campuses, conferences and special events. Whether she is doing a TV skit with Tim Conway or discussing teen violence with Queen Latifa, Dr. Linda will entertain, educate and integrate faith and mental health in everyday living. Check out her latest book Hope and Healing for Anxiety, a whole-person approach to eliminate anxiety. .","sameAs":["https:\/\/drlindamintle.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/x.com\/drlindamintle"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/author\/lmintle"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10351"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10412,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10351\/revisions\/10412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}