How To Feel Secure In Insecure Times

“Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, 

and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.”
 ~John Allen Paulos

It’s 4 a.m. and you’re wide awake, thinking about all the bad things that might happen in your career, relationships and life in general. These thoughts are creating anxiety and preventing you from sleeping. The fear you are feeling is self-imposed and created by thinking about a scary future rather than the reality of what’s happening in the present. Because, at the present moment, you are safe. There is nothing to fear other than the imaginary reality that exists only in your mind at 4 a.m.

We’re very good at using the power of our imagination at 4 a.m. Maybe that’s when we should schedule our team calls. Everyone awake at 4 a.m. can get together and redirect their power of imaging bad things to imaging phenomenal things. Just call 1800 no worries.

In all seriousness, when you are living in the misery of uncertainty about what’s next in your life, sleeping at 4 a.m. is not easy to do. We don’t like the feeling of not being in control of our life. We don’t like not knowing. We need to fill in the blanks about what’s likely to happen next. And, when you’re awake at 4 a.m., you probably aren’t imaging a happy future. So, you’re likely to fill in the blanks with what you fear will happen next instead of what you desire to happen next. You become trapped in a fear-driven thought cycle instead of a faith-driven cycle focused on pleasurable possibilities.

Although we don’t like being in a place that feels like an abyss between the past and the future, that’s where we live.  It’s called the present moment.  And, as you know, it’s all you ever really control. If you think you’ve created a secure, controllable, and predictable life for yourself, you can rest assured that is an illusion. Nothing stays the same forever. That doesn’t mean that change leads to something worse. It can actually open the door to something better. And, what may feel like an abyss, is actually a place that is filled with possibilities – if we choose to see and explore them.

So why not take control of the moment and try a little experiment the next time you’re awake at 4 a.m.  Instead of filling your head with dreadful thoughts about all the bad things that you believe are destined to happen to you – your feared future - try imaging what you desire – your preferred future.

It may not be easy to do in the beginning. Thinking scary thoughts at 4 a.m. becomes a habit if repeated often enough. But again, all you really can control are the thoughts in your head at the present moment And, if you replace those scary moments with happier thoughts often enough, you can develop a new habit that will pay greater dividends than the gloom and doom thinking habit you’re replacing.

The only constant in life is that it will involve change that triggers periods of uncertainty, feelings of insecurity but also opportunities to create something better. Try as you may to control the future, all you can really do is trust that whatever happens, you will survive, adapt, and make the best of it. You may even thrive.

You’ve successfully traveled through periods of uncertainty in the past and you likely will in the future. They don’t last forever. And, after a while you begin to realize that your true source of security is not a job, relationship, position or a certain amount of money that can all disappear in the blink of an eye.  Your true source of security can’t be taken away from you. It is your willingness to learn new skills, form new relationships, and explore options to create a new future when change has redefined the future you thought was yours.

Change can be paralyzing—or it can create an opportunity for you to become a better version of yourself. You have the power to choose which it will be for you.

You have always been the source of your own security and you always will be. When you begin to believe this, you will have the power to turn uncertainty into opportunity and sleep through those 4 a.m. worry wake up calls.

© Rita Burgett-Martell; Organizational Change Consultant, Keynote Speaker, Executive Career & Life Coach - Strategic Transformations Consulting Inc; (415) 806-9484 - Author of 'Change Ready!' and 'Defining Moments'
 www.amazon.com/author/ritaburgettmartell