July 31, 2025 • 37 mins
Uncertainty is the defining emotion of our 20s. Career paths, relationships, identity, purpose ... so much of this decade is marked by not knowing. Does that have to be as uncomfortable as we think it does? In today’s episode, we unpack the psychology of uncertainty: why our brains fear it, how it triggers anxiety and avoidance, and why trying to “figure it all out” might be doing more harm than good.
We explore:
- The neuroscience behind our discomfort with the unknown
- Why perfectionism is often a mask for our fear of uncertainty
- The cultural myths that make us believe we need a step-by-step life plan
- How to assign meaning to uncertainty and build resilience through it
- Practical strategies to take action even when the future feels unclear
If you've never felt more confused than you do now, and are unsure 'what's next', this episode is for you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, it's Gemma and I have something really special to
share with you. I'm hosting my first ever virtual live
video podcast. Not a pre recorded episode, not a highlight reel,
but a real time, face to face moment where we
get to connect, laugh, and kind of just reflect together
no matter where you are in the world. Plus, I'm
(00:22):
hosting a VIP after party for my inner circle. I
will be answering your questions and getting to talk to
you guys even more. It's happening August twelfth at seven
pm Pacific time, or August thirteenth at twelve pm. If
you live in my hometown of Sydney, you can grab
your ticket now at pave dot Live. I cannot wait
to see you there.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here
back for another episode as we of course break down
the Psychology of your twenties today to just jump straight
to the chase. We are talking about perhaps one of
(01:25):
the most defining parts of our twenties, the overwhelming uncertainty
of just being in this decade. If this decade had
one word to describe it, one theme to trump them all,
it would be uncertainty. We are lost in this very
weird haze of not really knowing who we are, not
(01:47):
really knowing what the future holds, what's going to happen
with our jobs, with our friends, with our finances, with
our love lives, and even once you think you have
some part of it figured out, another part of your
life suddenly crumbles and you're kind of just left feeling
as lost as you were before. So I got this
dam from a listener the other day that I wanted
(02:09):
to share, which really inspired me to talk about this
because going back through the archives, I realized we have
never sat down and done a full episode dedicated to
this feeling, despite it being I would say universal. This
is what her DM said, Hi, Gemma, I'm in my
twenties like I'm sure most of your listeners are, so
there must be others who relate to this feeling. My
(02:30):
dilemma is that everyone tells me to just try something,
and that it doesn't matter what path I'm taking in
my twenties, as long as I'm moving forward. What really
paralyzes me, though, is not knowing whether the path I
choose to take will make me happy or at least
happier than any other path. When I visualize my future,
it just feels like a big, ominous gray cloud, and
(02:53):
I can't help but feel like if I just knew
one part of the story, I could decide once and
for all what direction to take. How do I deal
with my fear of uncertainty? It's the biggest thing holding
me back. I just knew, like instantly upon reading this,
how many of us, and I can include myself in
this group, can relate to that feeling, the feeling that
our futures are not necessarily exciting but actually really scary
(03:17):
and really ominous. And a lot of that fear of
the unknown really fuels in decision, and it fuels not
making decisions that are important to make at this stage
in our life, which of course fuels later dissatisfaction. But
I think when you understand why we feel such uncertainty
to begin with, why it is human nature to turn
(03:39):
away from the unknown, but also how we can shift
our feelings about uncertainty so that it feels less scary.
That is, when this sensation has less control of you,
you know you're no longer fighting a losing battle against it.
Uncertainty can become perhaps your sign that you're going in
the right direction. It can be a sign of growth.
(04:01):
It can be a sign that you are trying new
things and you're expanding as a person. So you welcome it.
You welcome the sensation rather than running away from it.
If that sounds kind of implausible and out of reach,
let me explain how exactly we can get to that point.
If you want to get to that place, we're going
to have to make uncertainty feel like an asset and
(04:24):
we need to have a better strategy for coping with
this feeling. And so that is exactly what we are
going to talk about today. How we can celebrate rather
than fear the unknown, How we can integrate this feeling
into our life plan, see it as a sign, but
also some of the origins of why we feel this way,
not just in our twenties, but as a species. All
(04:47):
of that and more and so much psychology. So stay
with us. My fear of uncertainty. I think definitely shifted
when I realized that uncertainty is the opposite of boredom
and predictability. If I knew exactly how my life was
going to turn out, if I knew what was around
(05:08):
every single corner, the name of every single friend, I
would meet, my entire resume until the time I retire, Yes,
I would feel less uncertain, But what would the point
of being alive even be? I think the newness of life,
the experiences, the surprises, they are really what makes this
whole thing worthwhile. In a sense, you can't have surprises,
(05:30):
you can't have unexpected joy, you can't learn, you can't
have excitement and anticipation without uncertainty. It is a core
ingredient in so many otherwise really amazing and pleasurable experiences.
And That's what I'm personally learning to appreciate and focus
on when I do have those very natural moments of
(05:51):
being paralyzed by all that I don't know yet, I'm
kind of jumping the gun here. Yes, uncertainty may have
its upsides, we definitely can think about it differently, But
why do we even experience it to begin with? And
what makes it so freaking uncomfortable. That's really what we
have to nail down first. Like I said in the beginning,
(06:13):
uncertainty in our twenties are basically two peas in a
pod for a variety of reasons. Firstly, I want you
to give yourself some grace. You are doing everything for
the first time ever. Basically you are basically an adult
toddler or an adult child who yes, can read hopefully
and can write, and is hopefully potty trained and all
(06:34):
those things. But you are now experiencing the next level
of situations, the next level of learning, experiences that are
emotionally complex and not straightforward. And as you're experiencing that,
you also are without the same safety net that you
relied upon when you were younger. And you're without the
reassurance and the security of teachers and parents and a
(06:58):
school system and a side or system that hopefully isn't
going to let you fall through the cracks. You're on
your own. An uncertainty therefore feels a lot more alarming
because you feel like you're the one who is going
to hold the burden experience the full burden of any
poor decision or any poor outcome you made. It's all
(07:21):
on you at this point. Another element of this is
that because you are an adult toddler, you haven't had
enough life experience yet to know that things will eventually
work out for you, even if they don't the first time,
even if they are not working out right now, people
in their forties and their fifties and later, they know
(07:41):
that the breakup isn't the end of the world because
they've experienced them and survived before. They know making a
major mistake or losing a friend or losing a job
isn't the end of the world because they have evidence
from previous life experience to tell them that. But you, you
don't have those same data points. You don't have that
(08:01):
same catalog of examples that tell you everything is going
to be okay. Uncertainty for you, and uncertainty for a
lot of us in our twenties doesn't have a conclusion
the way that it has for people who are older. Then,
of course, just to add even more fuel to the fire,
there's the fact that you're kind of living between milestones,
(08:24):
and this decade is definitely one of perpetual transition. You
know you're no longer a teenager, but you know you
don't really feel like an adult. Yet you're not at
that financial level, you're not settled in a career, you're
not settled in a relationship the way that you expect
adults to be. What are you really? It's what psychologists
call a liminal space, The in between and liminal emotional
(08:48):
spaces are by nature, by definition disorientating because they don't
come with a clear script, and of course there's no
accurate way, and there's no one who's going to be
our but to tell you like, Okay, you're doing you're
doing well, you're doing fine, you are being you are successful.
Earlier in life, this is something I talk to people
(09:11):
about all the time. Earlier in life, your entire days, weeks, months,
are set up in a structure that will tell you
if you are doing well. There are clear benchmarks for
life performance, things like grades, things like passing to the
next year level, things like a whole cohort of people
(09:33):
in the same situation at the same time and the
same age as you, with whom you can mark your
progress against, and they're probably all in the same environment.
Like at school. You don't have that anymore. You don't
have that same framework to look around and think, okay,
I'm doing okay or I'm not doing okay, and these
are the areas I can improve, or these are the
(09:55):
areas that I'm excelling. You don't have that anymore, and
it might seem really arbitrary, but those social structures and
those environmental structures and that context actually provides a great
deal of and a great sense of calm and stability.
So you have during this decade almost suddenly lost a
lot of what previously allowed to just stay grounded, security, structure, direction,
(10:19):
and of course, finally, what may feel like a curse
but certainly isn't, is the fact that as a generation,
we have more choices than ever we really do. And
it's a beautiful thing and everyone tells us we're very privileged.
We also know that that creates a real paradox of
choice that can be quite stifling. You know, it is
amazing that when we're in our twenties, like eighty percent
(10:42):
of the doors are open to us. Definitely, there are
some things that we probably can't do anymore. You know. Unfortunately,
you're probably not going to become an Olympic gymnast if
you haven't been training since you were a trial. But
in general, you know, you were at the start line
of pretty much everything else. All the doors are open.
Do you know how utterly terrifying that actually is? We
(11:05):
probably do it because you're experiencing it, but it certainly
does feel like with each decision you make, the more
doors you seem to close, with no certainty around whether
you might actually want to go back through that door later,
and no certainty around what might happen next, Closing those
doors seems a lot more scary than it does fulfilling,
(11:26):
so you do nothing. You're paralyzed by choice and the
endless pro cons list that we know as decision paralysis.
That's really the twenty something explanation for uncertainty. There's also
a more human explanation as to why uncertainty in any capacity,
not just when it comes to the big ticket items
(11:48):
of our twenties, is so uncomfortable for us as a species.
To firstly, really state the obvious. Our brains they are
wired to seek out stability and clarity, because when if
something is known and familiar, there are of course less
opportunities for danger and threats. Now, the part of our
brain that controls this primal urge, there's true specific regions
(12:12):
actually it's the prefrontal cortex, so right up here at
the front, and the limbic system, which is really deep
inside our brain. It's part of what we call the
old brain. A series of studies done in the early
two thousands basically found that when we are exposed to
ambiguous things like an ambiguous image or ambiguous scenery, the
(12:33):
limbic system, particularly the amygdala, light up. Even when these
participants were in a laboratory setting where there is no
immediate danger, your brain is always going to respond over
cautiously and over zealously to something it doesn't understand, such
as the unknowns of the future. But that feeling is
(12:55):
also something that we can't suppress. It's automatic and for
good reason. You know, we want that part of us
that assesses danger to not be reliant on our judgment
and to be able to act quick. And you know,
the reason that we have such an aversion to uncertainty
is primarily rooted in the fact that we needed to
in order to survive. When you face an unknown you know,
(13:17):
your brain will immediately seek out as much information as
it can, real or imagined to fill the gaps. Our
brain is wired to do this. You might know this
by another term, which is catastrophizing. Your brain is trying
to figure out what's every possible thing that's going to
happen here. It's going to simulate outcomes, it's going to
(13:37):
generate predictions. The problem is it actually has no idea
what's going to happen. So it serves up all these situations,
some of them completely impossible, some of them may be
more likely. We can't always discern or tell the difference
between what is more likely and what is less likely.
We are just receiving information from this very old, ancient
(13:59):
part of our brain, and we're experiencing it as it comes.
We're experiencing all the fear as it comes without being
able to interrupt that and say, wait, how do I
why do I think this? How do I know this
is going to happen? Oh wait, I actually don't. So
this brings me to a next point. A lot of
our anxiety and our fears don't actually emerge from necessarily
(14:22):
something having gone wrong in actuality, but from the question
of what if, what if this happens? What if this
even worst thing happens, What if the worst thing happens.
This is because our brain will stay in this loop
of providing us with potential outcomes until it has some
kind of resolution or closure. It doesn't want to switch
(14:45):
off the alarm system until the reason for the alarm
has been given meaning or it's identified what the problem was.
And like I said in the past, that was useful.
Now it's just plain old annoying. It's annoying, and your
uncertainty is meant to feel that way. It's meant to
feel annoying and awful and frustrating, because again, it wants
(15:06):
to keep you alert. It wants to grab your attention
like a big shiny billboard or a big red stop sign.
It wants you to be looking straight at it. It
wants you to be directing it's focused on to the
thing you don't understand and that you're unsure about, so
that you can provide it with a sense of closure.
The thing is, if you give your anxiety and your
(15:30):
fear of the unknown and answer, if you give yourself
a reason for the uncertainty, more specifically, you give it
a purpose, it will actually go away. We are going
to discuss that more in a second, which is bear
with me, but it's also important as well. Before we
move on to understand that how you experience uncertainty in
your twenties is not the same as how everyone else
(15:50):
is going to experience this feeling, so you can't beat
yourself up if you feel like you are struggling with
it more than others. Psychologists in the early nineties identified
what they called an intolerance for uncertainty spectrum. Basically, they
found that where you sit in terms of your tolerance
or intolerance for uncertainty will determine how much information you
(16:14):
think you need before you make a decision. They discovered
this spectrum almost by accident. They were actually trying to
determine what personality traits caused anxiety, and in that research,
what they kept realizing that was that a number of
their participants all reported this same experience, this sense that
(16:34):
they weren't necessarily scared about what was going to happen.
They just really wanted to know what was going to happen.
And these same people were the ones who would read
ahead in books even if they were excited by the plotline.
They would read spoilers in the papers of movies that
they were really eager to see even though they knew
it was going to kind of ruin the enjoyment. They
would also at times make more impulsive decisions in their
(16:56):
relationships when they felt something was fading or feeling off,
not because they necessarily wanted the relationship to end, but
because to them, and it's kept coming up over and
over again, a known bad outcome was better than an
unknown good outcome. These same individuals were also, surprise, surprise,
(17:17):
more likely to have a diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder.
Most people in society and in our world will score
in the middle of this spectrum for an intolerance for uncertainty,
But people who score higher, probably like you and I,
tend to spend a lot more time ruminating on the
(17:38):
future than being in the present moment, and they just
can't help it. Someone with a high intolerance for uncertainty,
they might make lists repeatedly, They plan out conversations in
their head. They look at food menus well before they're
going to a restaurant, just to make sure that they
know that there's something they're going to like and they
know what they're going to order. They triple check driving routes,
(18:00):
do all these things basically to calm this sense that
if I don't know well, then something's going to go wrong,
this cloud ahead of me. It can only be dangerous
if this is you your twenties unnaturally, and I'm sorry
to say it, they are going to feel a lot
(18:21):
more stressful and they're going to feel harder than someone
who can naturally go with the flow, because you are
constantly being bombarded with unknowns and it's not you, it's
this decade. I promise you. I'm going to give you
some good news and some solutions in just a second.
But I do want to talk about what can happen
if we let uncertainty force us into a corner or
(18:43):
force us into a place of an action. Because uncertainty
is so uncomfortable, it can be a very powerful maladaptive motivator,
i e. Something that motivates us to do things that
are actually against our interests. And it's really important that
we are aware of that so that when we pause
and are choosing whether to act, whether or not to act,
(19:04):
we can carefully examine whether this isn't our best interest
or just because we are scared of an outcome that
is no more or less likely than any other outcome.
The ways this shows up in our twenties could be
a very long list, but I'm going to keep it brief,
and I want to scare you. I'm just going to
touch on two of the big consequences of letting this
feeling rule your life. Firstly, you accept what you don't deserve,
(19:30):
and also less than what you're capable of and less
than what you've actually worked for. It's like what I
said before, a known bad outcome over an unknown good
outcome is what you prefer, and how that might look
like is accepting the first grad offer because you're scared
of not getting another even though you don't really want
the job. Accepting the first person who I don't know
(19:53):
starts talking to you on hinge because you're scared that
no one else will talk to you, and you're scared
of what it will mean to be single after a
certain age. You choose the first apartment you see, the
first car you try out. You go to the same
places on the same trips over and over again, because
an uncertain outcome, even if there is chance that it
(20:14):
could be amazing, you don't want to take that risk.
Bear in mind, I have no judgment on this, I
have done this myself. All of that is basically anecdotal.
All that is basically my lived experience, because I am
someone who's this in the same boat with you. The
second consequence of a failure to embrace uncertainty in our
twenties is that we actually don't act at all. We
(20:37):
don't choose any job, we don't choose any partner, because
what if it's not the right one. You know, In
the first scenario, we chose the first thing, and this scenario,
we don't choose anything at all. It probably won't surprise
you that perfectionism and the fear of uncertainty are actually,
in fact sisters. They are, They're incredibly aligned. In fact,
(21:02):
I personally think that perfectionism is basically just the fear
of uncertainty with a different name. It's like a subgenre
of the feeling. Perfectionism often disguises itself as ambition or
high standards or great expectations for yourself, but underneath, it's
usually just fear. It's just a fear of the unknown,
the fear of what failure might bring, the fear of
(21:25):
making the wrong move. It is actually less about doing
things perfectly and more about trying to eliminate the possibility
of regret. That's what makes it a close relative of uncertainty.
They both come from a deep discomfort with not knowing
how things will turn out. Think of perfectionism in this
case as kind of like an emotional armor. If I
(21:46):
just plan enough, if I delayed the decision long enough,
if I do everything just right, then maybe maybe I
can avoid disappointment. But what you're really doing is just
trying to outrun uncertainty. A twenty twenty two study actually
looked at a group of students to determine whether the
perfectionism meant people were less quick to act when it
(22:07):
came to making a decision. They asked these students to
complete a questionnaire which would essentially rank each student based
on perfectionist tendencies, so the most perfectionists down to the
least perfectionists, And then they asked those students to consider
a bunch of would you rather questions? So would you
rather I don't know this or that? Would you rather
X or y? There was about I think fifty of
(22:29):
them fifty scenarios, and they measured how long it took
them to complete these entire range of scenarios. The top
twenty five percent of perfectionists took the same amount of
time combined to complete the exercise as the remaining seventy
five percent of students. They took so much longer because
(22:50):
they were sat there considering, wanting to make the perfect choice.
The thing is, opportunities don't always wait for us to
make up our minds. Big decisions aren't always going to
let you delay them. They will find the next person,
or they will disappear. A big part of our twenties
(23:13):
is being able to say yes to that thing that
feels really scary. Yes, I'm going to try. Yes, I
don't know what's going to happen, let me just do
it anyways. But when you are battling the fear of
all fears, the fear of the unknown, it's going to
be a lot harder for you. Finally, I'm here to
give you some good news. This is actually something you
(23:35):
can change, and it's something that many people have proven
to themselves that they are able to overcome. So I
want to explain exactly how you can do this, including
something you could literally do in the next five minutes
if you wanted to, that will allow you to better
act on your dreams, on the opportunities, on the desires
(23:55):
of our twenties. So we're going to talk about all
of that and so much more. Are this short break. Hey,
it's Gemma and I have something really special to share.
I'm hosting my first ever virtual live video podcast. Not
(24:16):
a pre recorded episode, not a highlight reel, but a
real time, face to face moment where we get to connect, laugh, reflect,
and honestly just kind of being it together. No matter
where you are in the world, if you've ever hit
play on an episode of the Psychology of Your Twenties
or Mantra and thought I really wish I could just
talk to Gena about this right now, this is your chance.
(24:38):
We're diving into the messy, beautiful chaos of your twenties,
your thirties, of life and beyond, and yes, you get
to be right there with me. There's a live chat
so we can talk in real time, and afterwards, I'm
hosting a private VIP party, my inner circle, we would
call it, where I'll be answering your questions and getting
even more personal. It's happening August twe well at seven
(25:00):
pm Pacific time, or August thirteenth at twelve pm if
you're on Sydney or Australia, so mark your calendar, Tell
your friends, grab your ticket now at pave dot Live.
I can't wait to see you there. Okay, so we
are back talking about uncertainty in our twenties, and luckily
(25:23):
for us, we are actually not the first generation to
feel this way, nor will we be the last. And
that's good news because it means that there are a
lot of people who have come up with some really
amazing approaches to this feeling that helped get them through
this period of discomfort and which will hopefully help you
as well. The biggest thing we can do for our
(25:45):
uncertainty in our twenties, and I've been hinting at this
for the entire episode, is to basically assign it a purpose,
because that satisfies our deeper desire for a reason, a meeting,
and kind of just a sense of why why is
this happening? The purpose you assigned to your uncertainty, it
could be that you see this as a learning opportunity.
(26:08):
It could be that you view uncertainty as a right
of passage. It could be that uncertainty is a sign
that you're opening yourself up to new things which are scary.
It could be a call to surrender and just to
accept life as it is. It could be a real
spiritual thing. It could be that uncertainty just makes for
a really good story, and you value a good story
(26:31):
and you can't have one with that uncertainty. Whatever it is,
whatever makes uncertainty feel meaningful to you, hone in on that.
Anytime you feel overwhelmed by the feeling, remind yourself, Okay,
but this has a purpose. This has a meaning for me.
I personally think of uncertainty as a sign that I
(26:53):
am about to really grow as a person, and, for
lack of a better word, I'm about to level up.
Every time I have ever felt scared, lost, uncertain it
has always been the beginning of something just over the
horizon that I haven't been able to see yet. Like
it always signals to me that something really big is
(27:14):
about to come that way. Now now that I know
that's its purpose, I actually almost get excited when I'm
feeling that way. I feel like I get kind of giddy.
I'm like ready to be surprised, and I really feel
like I'm in preparation mode for whatever is about to
happen next. The reason this worked is because when we
assign a role to our uncertainty, this actually gives us
(27:36):
a cognitive framework through which we can accept it, through
which we can just let it exist and actually focus
on what we need to focus on. We give the
annoying voice a job. It's like when a toddler. I
don't know if you've been around kids a lot, but
when like a toddler or a child is being really annoying,
so you tell them they have to rearrange all the pens,
or they have to divide up all their dolls or
(27:58):
pick up something like rise. I don't know, you give
them a job so you can get to work, Like
you give the annoying voice somewhere someone else to talk
to you, or something else to do. The second way
to really confront your uncertainty is also to look for
stories of people who didn't have it all figured out
or who dealt with supreme uncertainty and came out the
(28:21):
other side, rather than just looking for people who seem
like a natural A to B success story. The natural
success stories are all we seem to see these days.
So you would think that most people who you admire
have never struggled the way that you do and that
you have. That's false. It's hugely it's a big myth.
(28:44):
When you start collecting these stories, you will find that
almost every single person who has made something of themselves
has an uncertainty story DOCI. For example, that's one I've
recently added to my list. The Woman of the Hour.
She posted a YouTube video back in twenty twenty, only
like five years ago, about how she got fired from
her job, and in it, she's like, tomorrow, I'm just
(29:06):
gonna doorknock at a bunch of studios and just see
if they will give me an internship. She just want
a grammy. Five years ago, she was completely unsure of
where she was going to end up, and she ended
up in the right place because she leant into it.
The founder of Spanks, She's another one on my list.
She used to selle machines like daor to door. Now
(29:27):
she runs a billion dollar industry. Stephen King, He's another one.
His like draft for his book Carrie, which is now
a cult classic, a favorite of so many. He literally
threw that manuscript in the trash after it was rejected
thirty times, and that book is a cultural icon. I
(29:47):
even think of my mom, like my mom is the
one that often comes to mind for me. You know,
she was kicked out of university because she got such
poorly bad grades they basically expelled her. And and then
she took a year after travel. She didn't really know
what she wanted to do. She came back, she did
something different, and she graduated with the top jop and
(30:09):
now she's like this incredibly powerful, successful girl boss. All
these people and you have something very important in common.
In their journey to success and to wherever they ended up.
There were moments when they had absolutely no idea what
was next, and they just had to bet on themselves,
and they just had to trust that they were capable.
(30:32):
And once you start searching for these stories, you will
see them everywhere. You will see them constantly, until one
day you'll have your own version of this story, your
own version of how you overcame uncertainty, how in hindsight,
the path was actually so clear the entire time. Another
small thing you can do, and it's going to sound
(30:53):
so minuscule and silly you might be tempted to skip it.
Please don't. I want you to make a playlist that
you feel represents yourself and play it whenever you feel
uncomfortable or confused as a way to really just bring
yourself back and center yourself. Even if it doesn't necessarily
help you feel less uncertain, it can just help you
(31:16):
with the general feelings of discomfort and strangeness that you
may be having, and just as like a fun thing
to do, a fun thing to do to remind yourself
of who you are, of who you want to be,
of what your core values are. All through music. These
songs reflect how you see yourself back at you, and
(31:37):
that is a very special, familiar, beautiful feeling. There's actually
this brilliant twenty fourteen paper from a researcher in Texas
that talks about how music contributes to the formation of
our identity and can help us trust ourselves more because
it acts as a touchstone when we feel challenged. It
represents all the times we have previously overcome challenge, all
(32:01):
the times we've previously experienced joy, and the music we
choose really does reflect our values and says something about
how we see ourselves. And so when you're kind of
externally lost and don't really know who you are and
can't really find your way back, music is this like
beautiful anchor you know, I have a playlist like this.
The playlist is called if Jemma was a playlist, and
(32:23):
I was listening to it literally the other day, and
it has songs from twenty sixteen all the way up
to last week. And it's really a beautiful way to
see how I've transformed, to be able to categorically see
different chapters in my life and what was happening during them,
like and the music brings back all those memories and
also just to see how far I've come. And so
it's something you can literally take five minutes to do
(32:45):
for yourself right now. It's a fun exercise. I promise
you it will help you ground yourself during this like
crazy chaotic period. On a much larger scale, the biggest
antidote for uncertainty is really this, just try something, Try anything,
Choose something that interests you to get good at, and
(33:09):
when that thing stops serving you, choose something else. We
have to let go of this idea that every decision
you make in life has to naturally flow into the
next and the next and the next, and that you
have to have some step by step plan that you
can follow for your life. Your life is not a recipe.
(33:29):
You're not making a cake, you're not cooking sowder. Like
it's a series of experiments that take you to different
places that you didn't even know you were going to
get to. And when you give yourself permission to just try,
you really break this cycle of needing to know, You
break this cycle of needing to have all the answers,
and you move as well from that rumination spiral of
(33:51):
am I doing the right thing? Is this the best choice?
To just knowing that if you're taking action and if
you're doing something, you are making the right choice. Even
imperfect action, even the wrong choice, is still a better
choice than not doing anything at all. And it also
gives you data, It gives you experience, it gives you stories.
(34:15):
A question to really ask yourself as well. If you're
kind of thinking, okay, that's great, but which direction should
I choose? Especially if you're someone who has a lot
of hobbies and interests and passions and ambitions, the question
to ask yourself is just what would make me most
disappointed if I didn't do this? What would I be
(34:35):
most regretful around not doing in twenty years time? This
mentally makes you kind of compute how much you have
to lose by not acting, rather than getting you stuck
in this spiral of how much you have to lose
by acting. It reminds me of this quote You could
take a million detours to your destination and still get
(34:57):
there faster than someone who never got in the car.
And that's the idea I really want to leave you
with today. Uncertainty in our twenties is inevitable, but it's
actually a really profound sign that you're expanding and you
are growing, and you're reaching new spaces you haven't yet experienced.
That's a good thing, like congratulations. If you're feeling uncertain,
(35:21):
that is such a beautiful sign. And I wish I
could give you all the applause for just trying and
pushing yourself into new places and spaces. I know it
feels uncomfortable, but I promise you that this discomfort has
a purpose that you cannot yet see. Lean into it,
assign it a purpose while you're waiting, and just act.
(35:43):
Do anything, even if it's small things. I think that
that's a great solution for avoiding a worse discomfort of
looking back at your life and realizing that you never
did anything because you were scared of the unknown, When
the unknown is something that we always have to exist
side by side with and the only way to escape
the unknown is to create a known, is to create
(36:05):
a reality that you do really enjoy and that works
for you. And the other way you can do that
is through action. So that's a rather simple message, but
also deeply complex message. If you think about it. To
end the episode with, I just hope that it brings
you a sense of comfort that you're not the only
one going through it, and then I totally know it's
going to work out for you. It's totally going to
(36:25):
work out for you. I know that I can give
you that promise right now. So thank you so much
for listening. If you have made it this far, let's
leave a little emoji in the comments below that represents
how you're feeling about your life, how uncertainty feels in
your body right now, just so I know if you've
made it this far. If you're one of the loyal listeners,
(36:45):
make sure that you are following along or subscribed wherever
you're listening on YouTube, on Spotify, Apple, whatever, one and
give us a five star review if you feel called
to do so. It really does help the show grow
and reach new audiences. New fantastic, wonderful, twenty somethings and
older also make sure you're following us on Instagram at
that Psychology podcast. If you want to be part of
(37:08):
future episodes, if you want to DM me episode suggestions,
if you have questions dilemmas, you may even be able
to be featured in an episode just like this one.
So follow me over there, and until next time, stay safe,
be kind, be gentle to yourself, especially in the face
of uncertainty. We will talk very very soon.
Hey, it's Gemma and I have something really special to
share with you. I'm hosting my first ever virtual live
video podcast. Not a pre recorded episode, not a highlight reel,
but a real time, face to face moment where we
get to connect, laugh, and kind of just reflect together
no matter where you are in the world. Plus, I'm
(00:22):
hosting a VIP after party for my inner circle. I
will be answering your questions and getting to talk to
you guys even more. It's happening August twelfth at seven
pm Pacific time, or August thirteenth at twelve pm. If
you live in my hometown of Sydney, you can grab
your ticket now at pave dot Live. I cannot wait
to see you there.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here
back for another episode as we of course break down
the Psychology of your twenties today to just jump straight
to the chase. We are talking about perhaps one of
(01:25):
the most defining parts of our twenties, the overwhelming uncertainty
of just being in this decade. If this decade had
one word to describe it, one theme to trump them all,
it would be uncertainty. We are lost in this very
weird haze of not really knowing who we are, not
(01:47):
really knowing what the future holds, what's going to happen
with our jobs, with our friends, with our finances, with
our love lives, and even once you think you have
some part of it figured out, another part of your
life suddenly crumbles and you're kind of just left feeling
as lost as you were before. So I got this
dam from a listener the other day that I wanted
(02:09):
to share, which really inspired me to talk about this
because going back through the archives, I realized we have
never sat down and done a full episode dedicated to
this feeling, despite it being I would say universal. This
is what her DM said, Hi, Gemma, I'm in my
twenties like I'm sure most of your listeners are, so
there must be others who relate to this feeling. My
(02:30):
dilemma is that everyone tells me to just try something,
and that it doesn't matter what path I'm taking in
my twenties, as long as I'm moving forward. What really
paralyzes me, though, is not knowing whether the path I
choose to take will make me happy or at least
happier than any other path. When I visualize my future,
it just feels like a big, ominous gray cloud, and
(02:53):
I can't help but feel like if I just knew
one part of the story, I could decide once and
for all what direction to take. How do I deal
with my fear of uncertainty? It's the biggest thing holding
me back. I just knew, like instantly upon reading this,
how many of us, and I can include myself in
this group, can relate to that feeling, the feeling that
our futures are not necessarily exciting but actually really scary
(03:17):
and really ominous. And a lot of that fear of
the unknown really fuels in decision, and it fuels not
making decisions that are important to make at this stage
in our life, which of course fuels later dissatisfaction. But
I think when you understand why we feel such uncertainty
to begin with, why it is human nature to turn
(03:39):
away from the unknown, but also how we can shift
our feelings about uncertainty so that it feels less scary.
That is, when this sensation has less control of you,
you know you're no longer fighting a losing battle against it.
Uncertainty can become perhaps your sign that you're going in
the right direction. It can be a sign of growth.
(04:01):
It can be a sign that you are trying new
things and you're expanding as a person. So you welcome it.
You welcome the sensation rather than running away from it.
If that sounds kind of implausible and out of reach,
let me explain how exactly we can get to that point.
If you want to get to that place, we're going
to have to make uncertainty feel like an asset and
(04:24):
we need to have a better strategy for coping with
this feeling. And so that is exactly what we are
going to talk about today. How we can celebrate rather
than fear the unknown, How we can integrate this feeling
into our life plan, see it as a sign, but
also some of the origins of why we feel this way,
not just in our twenties, but as a species. All
(04:47):
of that and more and so much psychology. So stay
with us. My fear of uncertainty. I think definitely shifted
when I realized that uncertainty is the opposite of boredom
and predictability. If I knew exactly how my life was
going to turn out, if I knew what was around
(05:08):
every single corner, the name of every single friend, I
would meet, my entire resume until the time I retire, Yes,
I would feel less uncertain, But what would the point
of being alive even be? I think the newness of life,
the experiences, the surprises, they are really what makes this
whole thing worthwhile. In a sense, you can't have surprises,
(05:30):
you can't have unexpected joy, you can't learn, you can't
have excitement and anticipation without uncertainty. It is a core
ingredient in so many otherwise really amazing and pleasurable experiences.
And That's what I'm personally learning to appreciate and focus
on when I do have those very natural moments of
(05:51):
being paralyzed by all that I don't know yet, I'm
kind of jumping the gun here. Yes, uncertainty may have
its upsides, we definitely can think about it differently, But
why do we even experience it to begin with? And
what makes it so freaking uncomfortable. That's really what we
have to nail down first. Like I said in the beginning,
(06:13):
uncertainty in our twenties are basically two peas in a
pod for a variety of reasons. Firstly, I want you
to give yourself some grace. You are doing everything for
the first time ever. Basically you are basically an adult
toddler or an adult child who yes, can read hopefully
and can write, and is hopefully potty trained and all
(06:34):
those things. But you are now experiencing the next level
of situations, the next level of learning, experiences that are
emotionally complex and not straightforward. And as you're experiencing that,
you also are without the same safety net that you
relied upon when you were younger. And you're without the
reassurance and the security of teachers and parents and a
(06:58):
school system and a side or system that hopefully isn't
going to let you fall through the cracks. You're on
your own. An uncertainty therefore feels a lot more alarming
because you feel like you're the one who is going
to hold the burden experience the full burden of any
poor decision or any poor outcome you made. It's all
(07:21):
on you at this point. Another element of this is
that because you are an adult toddler, you haven't had
enough life experience yet to know that things will eventually
work out for you, even if they don't the first time,
even if they are not working out right now, people
in their forties and their fifties and later, they know
(07:41):
that the breakup isn't the end of the world because
they've experienced them and survived before. They know making a
major mistake or losing a friend or losing a job
isn't the end of the world because they have evidence
from previous life experience to tell them that. But you, you
don't have those same data points. You don't have that
(08:01):
same catalog of examples that tell you everything is going
to be okay. Uncertainty for you, and uncertainty for a
lot of us in our twenties doesn't have a conclusion
the way that it has for people who are older. Then,
of course, just to add even more fuel to the fire,
there's the fact that you're kind of living between milestones,
(08:24):
and this decade is definitely one of perpetual transition. You
know you're no longer a teenager, but you know you
don't really feel like an adult. Yet you're not at
that financial level, you're not settled in a career, you're
not settled in a relationship the way that you expect
adults to be. What are you really? It's what psychologists
call a liminal space, The in between and liminal emotional
(08:48):
spaces are by nature, by definition disorientating because they don't
come with a clear script, and of course there's no
accurate way, and there's no one who's going to be
our but to tell you like, Okay, you're doing you're
doing well, you're doing fine, you are being you are successful.
Earlier in life, this is something I talk to people
(09:11):
about all the time. Earlier in life, your entire days, weeks, months,
are set up in a structure that will tell you
if you are doing well. There are clear benchmarks for
life performance, things like grades, things like passing to the
next year level, things like a whole cohort of people
(09:33):
in the same situation at the same time and the
same age as you, with whom you can mark your
progress against, and they're probably all in the same environment.
Like at school. You don't have that anymore. You don't
have that same framework to look around and think, okay,
I'm doing okay or I'm not doing okay, and these
are the areas I can improve, or these are the
(09:55):
areas that I'm excelling. You don't have that anymore, and
it might seem really arbitrary, but those social structures and
those environmental structures and that context actually provides a great
deal of and a great sense of calm and stability.
So you have during this decade almost suddenly lost a
lot of what previously allowed to just stay grounded, security, structure, direction,
(10:19):
and of course, finally, what may feel like a curse
but certainly isn't, is the fact that as a generation,
we have more choices than ever we really do. And
it's a beautiful thing and everyone tells us we're very privileged.
We also know that that creates a real paradox of
choice that can be quite stifling. You know, it is
amazing that when we're in our twenties, like eighty percent
(10:42):
of the doors are open to us. Definitely, there are
some things that we probably can't do anymore. You know. Unfortunately,
you're probably not going to become an Olympic gymnast if
you haven't been training since you were a trial. But
in general, you know, you were at the start line
of pretty much everything else. All the doors are open.
Do you know how utterly terrifying that actually is? We
(11:05):
probably do it because you're experiencing it, but it certainly
does feel like with each decision you make, the more
doors you seem to close, with no certainty around whether
you might actually want to go back through that door later,
and no certainty around what might happen next, Closing those
doors seems a lot more scary than it does fulfilling,
(11:26):
so you do nothing. You're paralyzed by choice and the
endless pro cons list that we know as decision paralysis.
That's really the twenty something explanation for uncertainty. There's also
a more human explanation as to why uncertainty in any capacity,
not just when it comes to the big ticket items
(11:48):
of our twenties, is so uncomfortable for us as a species.
To firstly, really state the obvious. Our brains they are
wired to seek out stability and clarity, because when if
something is known and familiar, there are of course less
opportunities for danger and threats. Now, the part of our
brain that controls this primal urge, there's true specific regions
(12:12):
actually it's the prefrontal cortex, so right up here at
the front, and the limbic system, which is really deep
inside our brain. It's part of what we call the
old brain. A series of studies done in the early
two thousands basically found that when we are exposed to
ambiguous things like an ambiguous image or ambiguous scenery, the
(12:33):
limbic system, particularly the amygdala, light up. Even when these
participants were in a laboratory setting where there is no
immediate danger, your brain is always going to respond over
cautiously and over zealously to something it doesn't understand, such
as the unknowns of the future. But that feeling is
(12:55):
also something that we can't suppress. It's automatic and for
good reason. You know, we want that part of us
that assesses danger to not be reliant on our judgment
and to be able to act quick. And you know,
the reason that we have such an aversion to uncertainty
is primarily rooted in the fact that we needed to
in order to survive. When you face an unknown you know,
(13:17):
your brain will immediately seek out as much information as
it can, real or imagined to fill the gaps. Our
brain is wired to do this. You might know this
by another term, which is catastrophizing. Your brain is trying
to figure out what's every possible thing that's going to
happen here. It's going to simulate outcomes, it's going to
(13:37):
generate predictions. The problem is it actually has no idea
what's going to happen. So it serves up all these situations,
some of them completely impossible, some of them may be
more likely. We can't always discern or tell the difference
between what is more likely and what is less likely.
We are just receiving information from this very old, ancient
(13:59):
part of our brain, and we're experiencing it as it comes.
We're experiencing all the fear as it comes without being
able to interrupt that and say, wait, how do I
why do I think this? How do I know this
is going to happen? Oh wait, I actually don't. So
this brings me to a next point. A lot of
our anxiety and our fears don't actually emerge from necessarily
(14:22):
something having gone wrong in actuality, but from the question
of what if, what if this happens? What if this
even worst thing happens, What if the worst thing happens.
This is because our brain will stay in this loop
of providing us with potential outcomes until it has some
kind of resolution or closure. It doesn't want to switch
(14:45):
off the alarm system until the reason for the alarm
has been given meaning or it's identified what the problem was.
And like I said in the past, that was useful.
Now it's just plain old annoying. It's annoying, and your
uncertainty is meant to feel that way. It's meant to
feel annoying and awful and frustrating, because again, it wants
(15:06):
to keep you alert. It wants to grab your attention
like a big shiny billboard or a big red stop sign.
It wants you to be looking straight at it. It
wants you to be directing it's focused on to the
thing you don't understand and that you're unsure about, so
that you can provide it with a sense of closure.
The thing is, if you give your anxiety and your
(15:30):
fear of the unknown and answer, if you give yourself
a reason for the uncertainty, more specifically, you give it
a purpose, it will actually go away. We are going
to discuss that more in a second, which is bear
with me, but it's also important as well. Before we
move on to understand that how you experience uncertainty in
your twenties is not the same as how everyone else
(15:50):
is going to experience this feeling, so you can't beat
yourself up if you feel like you are struggling with
it more than others. Psychologists in the early nineties identified
what they called an intolerance for uncertainty spectrum. Basically, they
found that where you sit in terms of your tolerance
or intolerance for uncertainty will determine how much information you
(16:14):
think you need before you make a decision. They discovered
this spectrum almost by accident. They were actually trying to
determine what personality traits caused anxiety, and in that research,
what they kept realizing that was that a number of
their participants all reported this same experience, this sense that
(16:34):
they weren't necessarily scared about what was going to happen.
They just really wanted to know what was going to happen.
And these same people were the ones who would read
ahead in books even if they were excited by the plotline.
They would read spoilers in the papers of movies that
they were really eager to see even though they knew
it was going to kind of ruin the enjoyment. They
would also at times make more impulsive decisions in their
(16:56):
relationships when they felt something was fading or feeling off,
not because they necessarily wanted the relationship to end, but
because to them, and it's kept coming up over and
over again, a known bad outcome was better than an
unknown good outcome. These same individuals were also, surprise, surprise,
(17:17):
more likely to have a diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder.
Most people in society and in our world will score
in the middle of this spectrum for an intolerance for uncertainty,
But people who score higher, probably like you and I,
tend to spend a lot more time ruminating on the
(17:38):
future than being in the present moment, and they just
can't help it. Someone with a high intolerance for uncertainty,
they might make lists repeatedly, They plan out conversations in
their head. They look at food menus well before they're
going to a restaurant, just to make sure that they
know that there's something they're going to like and they
know what they're going to order. They triple check driving routes,
(18:00):
do all these things basically to calm this sense that
if I don't know well, then something's going to go wrong,
this cloud ahead of me. It can only be dangerous
if this is you your twenties unnaturally, and I'm sorry
to say it, they are going to feel a lot
(18:21):
more stressful and they're going to feel harder than someone
who can naturally go with the flow, because you are
constantly being bombarded with unknowns and it's not you, it's
this decade. I promise you. I'm going to give you
some good news and some solutions in just a second.
But I do want to talk about what can happen
if we let uncertainty force us into a corner or
(18:43):
force us into a place of an action. Because uncertainty
is so uncomfortable, it can be a very powerful maladaptive motivator,
i e. Something that motivates us to do things that
are actually against our interests. And it's really important that
we are aware of that so that when we pause
and are choosing whether to act, whether or not to act,
(19:04):
we can carefully examine whether this isn't our best interest
or just because we are scared of an outcome that
is no more or less likely than any other outcome.
The ways this shows up in our twenties could be
a very long list, but I'm going to keep it brief,
and I want to scare you. I'm just going to
touch on two of the big consequences of letting this
feeling rule your life. Firstly, you accept what you don't deserve,
(19:30):
and also less than what you're capable of and less
than what you've actually worked for. It's like what I
said before, a known bad outcome over an unknown good
outcome is what you prefer, and how that might look
like is accepting the first grad offer because you're scared
of not getting another even though you don't really want
the job. Accepting the first person who I don't know
(19:53):
starts talking to you on hinge because you're scared that
no one else will talk to you, and you're scared
of what it will mean to be single after a
certain age. You choose the first apartment you see, the
first car you try out. You go to the same
places on the same trips over and over again, because
an uncertain outcome, even if there is chance that it
(20:14):
could be amazing, you don't want to take that risk.
Bear in mind, I have no judgment on this, I
have done this myself. All of that is basically anecdotal.
All that is basically my lived experience, because I am
someone who's this in the same boat with you. The
second consequence of a failure to embrace uncertainty in our
twenties is that we actually don't act at all. We
(20:37):
don't choose any job, we don't choose any partner, because
what if it's not the right one. You know, In
the first scenario, we chose the first thing, and this scenario,
we don't choose anything at all. It probably won't surprise
you that perfectionism and the fear of uncertainty are actually,
in fact sisters. They are, They're incredibly aligned. In fact,
(21:02):
I personally think that perfectionism is basically just the fear
of uncertainty with a different name. It's like a subgenre
of the feeling. Perfectionism often disguises itself as ambition or
high standards or great expectations for yourself, but underneath, it's
usually just fear. It's just a fear of the unknown,
the fear of what failure might bring, the fear of
(21:25):
making the wrong move. It is actually less about doing
things perfectly and more about trying to eliminate the possibility
of regret. That's what makes it a close relative of uncertainty.
They both come from a deep discomfort with not knowing
how things will turn out. Think of perfectionism in this
case as kind of like an emotional armor. If I
(21:46):
just plan enough, if I delayed the decision long enough,
if I do everything just right, then maybe maybe I
can avoid disappointment. But what you're really doing is just
trying to outrun uncertainty. A twenty twenty two study actually
looked at a group of students to determine whether the
perfectionism meant people were less quick to act when it
(22:07):
came to making a decision. They asked these students to
complete a questionnaire which would essentially rank each student based
on perfectionist tendencies, so the most perfectionists down to the
least perfectionists, And then they asked those students to consider
a bunch of would you rather questions? So would you
rather I don't know this or that? Would you rather
X or y? There was about I think fifty of
(22:29):
them fifty scenarios, and they measured how long it took
them to complete these entire range of scenarios. The top
twenty five percent of perfectionists took the same amount of
time combined to complete the exercise as the remaining seventy
five percent of students. They took so much longer because
(22:50):
they were sat there considering, wanting to make the perfect choice.
The thing is, opportunities don't always wait for us to
make up our minds. Big decisions aren't always going to
let you delay them. They will find the next person,
or they will disappear. A big part of our twenties
(23:13):
is being able to say yes to that thing that
feels really scary. Yes, I'm going to try. Yes, I
don't know what's going to happen, let me just do
it anyways. But when you are battling the fear of
all fears, the fear of the unknown, it's going to
be a lot harder for you. Finally, I'm here to
give you some good news. This is actually something you
(23:35):
can change, and it's something that many people have proven
to themselves that they are able to overcome. So I
want to explain exactly how you can do this, including
something you could literally do in the next five minutes
if you wanted to, that will allow you to better
act on your dreams, on the opportunities, on the desires
(23:55):
of our twenties. So we're going to talk about all
of that and so much more. Are this short break. Hey,
it's Gemma and I have something really special to share.
I'm hosting my first ever virtual live video podcast. Not
(24:16):
a pre recorded episode, not a highlight reel, but a
real time, face to face moment where we get to connect, laugh, reflect,
and honestly just kind of being it together. No matter
where you are in the world, if you've ever hit
play on an episode of the Psychology of Your Twenties
or Mantra and thought I really wish I could just
talk to Gena about this right now, this is your chance.
(24:38):
We're diving into the messy, beautiful chaos of your twenties,
your thirties, of life and beyond, and yes, you get
to be right there with me. There's a live chat
so we can talk in real time, and afterwards, I'm
hosting a private VIP party, my inner circle, we would
call it, where I'll be answering your questions and getting
even more personal. It's happening August twe well at seven
(25:00):
pm Pacific time, or August thirteenth at twelve pm if
you're on Sydney or Australia, so mark your calendar, Tell
your friends, grab your ticket now at pave dot Live.
I can't wait to see you there. Okay, so we
are back talking about uncertainty in our twenties, and luckily
(25:23):
for us, we are actually not the first generation to
feel this way, nor will we be the last. And
that's good news because it means that there are a
lot of people who have come up with some really
amazing approaches to this feeling that helped get them through
this period of discomfort and which will hopefully help you
as well. The biggest thing we can do for our
(25:45):
uncertainty in our twenties, and I've been hinting at this
for the entire episode, is to basically assign it a purpose,
because that satisfies our deeper desire for a reason, a meeting,
and kind of just a sense of why why is
this happening? The purpose you assigned to your uncertainty, it
could be that you see this as a learning opportunity.
(26:08):
It could be that you view uncertainty as a right
of passage. It could be that uncertainty is a sign
that you're opening yourself up to new things which are scary.
It could be a call to surrender and just to
accept life as it is. It could be a real
spiritual thing. It could be that uncertainty just makes for
a really good story, and you value a good story
(26:31):
and you can't have one with that uncertainty. Whatever it is,
whatever makes uncertainty feel meaningful to you, hone in on that.
Anytime you feel overwhelmed by the feeling, remind yourself, Okay,
but this has a purpose. This has a meaning for me.
I personally think of uncertainty as a sign that I
(26:53):
am about to really grow as a person, and, for
lack of a better word, I'm about to level up.
Every time I have ever felt scared, lost, uncertain it
has always been the beginning of something just over the
horizon that I haven't been able to see yet. Like
it always signals to me that something really big is
(27:14):
about to come that way. Now now that I know
that's its purpose, I actually almost get excited when I'm
feeling that way. I feel like I get kind of giddy.
I'm like ready to be surprised, and I really feel
like I'm in preparation mode for whatever is about to
happen next. The reason this worked is because when we
assign a role to our uncertainty, this actually gives us
(27:36):
a cognitive framework through which we can accept it, through
which we can just let it exist and actually focus
on what we need to focus on. We give the
annoying voice a job. It's like when a toddler. I
don't know if you've been around kids a lot, but
when like a toddler or a child is being really annoying,
so you tell them they have to rearrange all the pens,
or they have to divide up all their dolls or
(27:58):
pick up something like rise. I don't know, you give
them a job so you can get to work, Like
you give the annoying voice somewhere someone else to talk
to you, or something else to do. The second way
to really confront your uncertainty is also to look for
stories of people who didn't have it all figured out
or who dealt with supreme uncertainty and came out the
(28:21):
other side, rather than just looking for people who seem
like a natural A to B success story. The natural
success stories are all we seem to see these days.
So you would think that most people who you admire
have never struggled the way that you do and that
you have. That's false. It's hugely it's a big myth.
(28:44):
When you start collecting these stories, you will find that
almost every single person who has made something of themselves
has an uncertainty story DOCI. For example, that's one I've
recently added to my list. The Woman of the Hour.
She posted a YouTube video back in twenty twenty, only
like five years ago, about how she got fired from
her job, and in it, she's like, tomorrow, I'm just
(29:06):
gonna doorknock at a bunch of studios and just see
if they will give me an internship. She just want
a grammy. Five years ago, she was completely unsure of
where she was going to end up, and she ended
up in the right place because she leant into it.
The founder of Spanks, She's another one on my list.
She used to selle machines like daor to door. Now
(29:27):
she runs a billion dollar industry. Stephen King, He's another one.
His like draft for his book Carrie, which is now
a cult classic, a favorite of so many. He literally
threw that manuscript in the trash after it was rejected
thirty times, and that book is a cultural icon. I
(29:47):
even think of my mom, like my mom is the
one that often comes to mind for me. You know,
she was kicked out of university because she got such
poorly bad grades they basically expelled her. And and then
she took a year after travel. She didn't really know
what she wanted to do. She came back, she did
something different, and she graduated with the top jop and
(30:09):
now she's like this incredibly powerful, successful girl boss. All
these people and you have something very important in common.
In their journey to success and to wherever they ended up.
There were moments when they had absolutely no idea what
was next, and they just had to bet on themselves,
and they just had to trust that they were capable.
(30:32):
And once you start searching for these stories, you will
see them everywhere. You will see them constantly, until one
day you'll have your own version of this story, your
own version of how you overcame uncertainty, how in hindsight,
the path was actually so clear the entire time. Another
small thing you can do, and it's going to sound
(30:53):
so minuscule and silly you might be tempted to skip it.
Please don't. I want you to make a playlist that
you feel represents yourself and play it whenever you feel
uncomfortable or confused as a way to really just bring
yourself back and center yourself. Even if it doesn't necessarily
help you feel less uncertain, it can just help you
(31:16):
with the general feelings of discomfort and strangeness that you
may be having, and just as like a fun thing
to do, a fun thing to do to remind yourself
of who you are, of who you want to be,
of what your core values are. All through music. These
songs reflect how you see yourself back at you, and
(31:37):
that is a very special, familiar, beautiful feeling. There's actually
this brilliant twenty fourteen paper from a researcher in Texas
that talks about how music contributes to the formation of
our identity and can help us trust ourselves more because
it acts as a touchstone when we feel challenged. It
represents all the times we have previously overcome challenge, all
(32:01):
the times we've previously experienced joy, and the music we
choose really does reflect our values and says something about
how we see ourselves. And so when you're kind of
externally lost and don't really know who you are and
can't really find your way back, music is this like
beautiful anchor you know, I have a playlist like this.
The playlist is called if Jemma was a playlist, and
(32:23):
I was listening to it literally the other day, and
it has songs from twenty sixteen all the way up
to last week. And it's really a beautiful way to
see how I've transformed, to be able to categorically see
different chapters in my life and what was happening during them,
like and the music brings back all those memories and
also just to see how far I've come. And so
it's something you can literally take five minutes to do
(32:45):
for yourself right now. It's a fun exercise. I promise
you it will help you ground yourself during this like
crazy chaotic period. On a much larger scale, the biggest
antidote for uncertainty is really this, just try something, Try anything,
Choose something that interests you to get good at, and
(33:09):
when that thing stops serving you, choose something else. We
have to let go of this idea that every decision
you make in life has to naturally flow into the
next and the next and the next, and that you
have to have some step by step plan that you
can follow for your life. Your life is not a recipe.
(33:29):
You're not making a cake, you're not cooking sowder. Like
it's a series of experiments that take you to different
places that you didn't even know you were going to
get to. And when you give yourself permission to just try,
you really break this cycle of needing to know, You
break this cycle of needing to have all the answers,
and you move as well from that rumination spiral of
(33:51):
am I doing the right thing? Is this the best choice?
To just knowing that if you're taking action and if
you're doing something, you are making the right choice. Even
imperfect action, even the wrong choice, is still a better
choice than not doing anything at all. And it also
gives you data, It gives you experience, it gives you stories.
(34:15):
A question to really ask yourself as well. If you're
kind of thinking, okay, that's great, but which direction should
I choose? Especially if you're someone who has a lot
of hobbies and interests and passions and ambitions, the question
to ask yourself is just what would make me most
disappointed if I didn't do this? What would I be
(34:35):
most regretful around not doing in twenty years time? This
mentally makes you kind of compute how much you have
to lose by not acting, rather than getting you stuck
in this spiral of how much you have to lose
by acting. It reminds me of this quote You could
take a million detours to your destination and still get
(34:57):
there faster than someone who never got in the car.
And that's the idea I really want to leave you
with today. Uncertainty in our twenties is inevitable, but it's
actually a really profound sign that you're expanding and you
are growing, and you're reaching new spaces you haven't yet experienced.
That's a good thing, like congratulations. If you're feeling uncertain,
(35:21):
that is such a beautiful sign. And I wish I
could give you all the applause for just trying and
pushing yourself into new places and spaces. I know it
feels uncomfortable, but I promise you that this discomfort has
a purpose that you cannot yet see. Lean into it,
assign it a purpose while you're waiting, and just act.
(35:43):
Do anything, even if it's small things. I think that
that's a great solution for avoiding a worse discomfort of
looking back at your life and realizing that you never
did anything because you were scared of the unknown, When
the unknown is something that we always have to exist
side by side with and the only way to escape
the unknown is to create a known, is to create
(36:05):
a reality that you do really enjoy and that works
for you. And the other way you can do that
is through action. So that's a rather simple message, but
also deeply complex message. If you think about it. To
end the episode with, I just hope that it brings
you a sense of comfort that you're not the only
one going through it, and then I totally know it's
going to work out for you. It's totally going to
(36:25):
work out for you. I know that I can give
you that promise right now. So thank you so much
for listening. If you have made it this far, let's
leave a little emoji in the comments below that represents
how you're feeling about your life, how uncertainty feels in
your body right now, just so I know if you've
made it this far. If you're one of the loyal listeners,
(36:45):
make sure that you are following along or subscribed wherever
you're listening on YouTube, on Spotify, Apple, whatever, one and
give us a five star review if you feel called
to do so. It really does help the show grow
and reach new audiences. New fantastic, wonderful, twenty somethings and
older also make sure you're following us on Instagram at
that Psychology podcast. If you want to be part of
(37:08):
future episodes, if you want to DM me episode suggestions,
if you have questions dilemmas, you may even be able
to be featured in an episode just like this one.
So follow me over there, and until next time, stay safe,
be kind, be gentle to yourself, especially in the face
of uncertainty. We will talk very very soon.
Host
Jemma Sbeghen
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