3. Understanding: Uncertainty

It is a fact that most of us will do almost anything to avoid uncertainty. Why? Because humans don’t like change. Neuroscientist Shelley Laslett explains to Sally Spicer why it feels so terrible and how to sit with it anyway. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Mindset, a guide to getting out of your
own way and a blueprint for professional success. Today, neuroscientist
Shelley Laslett is here to talk about uncertainty and the
science behind why most of us will do almost anything
to avoid it.
That's pretty uncomfortable having to wait for someone else to

(00:23):
make a big decision that impacts you. It's quite scary
having to wait for that, especially when you're afraid of rejection.
The worst feeling ever. I will spend like days just
overthinking every little thing that
would have possibly happened or gone wrong? Like, what, how
was I presenting myself? What did I say? What did
I do? What did the person I was engaging with
say and do? And generally, I will convince myself of

(00:45):
the worst, which is like it's a nice surprise when
it doesn't go that way, but it is just a
very fun, endless loop of anxiety and overthinking. Shelly, today
we're talking about uncertainty. First up, why is it so
uncomfortable to be uncertain about something?

Speaker 2 (01:03):
We don't like change. Humans do not like change. We
love to predict outcomes because when we predict outcomes, we
are safe, and we want to be safe. We want
to survive. So our brains are pattern recognition machines. We
are constantly trying to predict the near future, and when
we can predict outcomes or anticipate what's going to happen accurately,

(01:24):
we feel safe and secure. We don't feel threatened. Remember
that our brain wants to feel safe and secure all
the time. Normal, right?
And you're like, yes, that, that's how I want you
to feel.
So when change comes into the mix, it naturally disrupts
our existing and previous thought processes, patterns, behavioural hierarchies, habits,

(01:46):
things that we know we should be doing, our, our
sort of our autopilot playbook. And we streamline these. So
we know when a person does this, to do this.
We know when our boss and Z at 8 a.m.
that they're pretty stressed. Cool. I know how to respond
to that. I know how to do this. Right? So
then our boss doesn't send us an email at 8 a.m.,
but they send it to my colleague at 8:00 a.m.

(02:06):
Does that mean, like, I'm not the person doing that now?
Is that not my project? Should I not be responsible
for that? I'm not sure about now, are we on
the same page? You can see how a tiny action
that potentially has nothing to do with you can flick
up that pattern.
And so, if we think about change happening, whenever there

(02:27):
is a change in the programme or the pattern or
things happening outside of us, it causes us to be
less rational. It actually means we're often less collaborative and
less productive. So,
Uncertainty is uncomfortable because we want to feel safe all
the time. And if we think that there is a
threat to our safety, remember, emotional threat, social threat, and
physical threat are the same. If we think that there's

(02:47):
a threat to our safety in our social relationships or
our social dynamics, our body is going to start to
send those threat response. It's going to start to generate
those self-reflective questions. You know, why did that happen? Should
I be doing this? Was it because I did that?
Is it because I was, I didn't put out cheers
at the end of my last email? You know, we
overanalyze every single detail.

(03:08):
Now, it's really important to understand that safety is our
number one goal. So change, change by nature is uncertain,
it is uncomfortable. But here comes sort of the, the
irony of being human. We are designed to change.
You know, we know from Darwin that it's not the
fittest species that survive, it's the most adaptable. And humans

(03:30):
have only hung around on this planet as long as
we have because of our adaptability. And we saw, particularly
most recently in our pandemic periods, huge waves of change
moving across the world. Now, was it uncomfortable? Yes. Was
it uncertain? Yes. But could we do it and adapt
really quickly? Yes.
So we can see that we as humans, we as

(03:51):
people can change.
And you as an individual can change. It's not necessarily comfortable.
And it does come with uncertainty, but you are incredibly
capable of it. You are actually designed to change, evolve
and grow. And in fact, your brain is underpinned by
this very principle, something called neuroplasticity, the idea that your
brain is plastic and malleable, and it can change and

(04:14):
adapt in responses to experiences throughout your lifetime. What does
that mean? It means that it can change the things
that happen within you, your thoughts and feelings, but also
it changes and adapts to things that happen outside of you.
So whilst change might not be comfortable and our brain
is going to send those threat responses, we are actually
designed to be able to deal with

Speaker 1 (04:35):
change. OK, so it sounds like what you're talking about
there is using strategies to adapt to uncertainty and change
our thinking patterns. So, let's talk about adaptability. How can
we practise it as a skill and get better at
actually sitting in that uncertainty?

Speaker 2 (04:51):
So, adaptability is critical. Without adaptability, we do not survive.
Without adaptability, humans would have died a very long time ago.
We would not be here. So adaptability is, is change,
it's growth. So I want you to think necessarily about
growth and growing pains are synonymous. The only thing that
determines whether or not it's painful or progressive is how

(05:12):
you think about it.
So, your adaptability is your ability to change and grow.
And this is actually what I was mentioning before with neuroplasticity. Now,
neuroplasticity is where our brain cells, our neurons, have conversations together. They,
they grow new pathways, connection points. So we have neurons connect,
and they don't necessarily actually touch, but they extend out
to each other and they form something called a synapse

(05:34):
or a synapse, depending on where you live in the world.
And across that synapse, uh, information is exchanged, and information
is offered the, uh,
Just think about it as what's called a neurotransmitter or
a hormone is exchanged, and proteins are exchanged across that.
And that exchange of information governs what happens or doesn't
happen next. But it also governs the way that the
very structures of those neurons, the very structures of your

(05:56):
brain cells, the very structure of your brain, it governs
how it's put together.
I'm not gonna go into any more detail than that
cause it is quite a complex process, as you can imagine.
But what you need to understand is that your very thinking,
the way that you think and feel and talk to yourself,
your internal dialogue can change the physical structure of how

(06:17):
your brain is put together.
So the way that you talk to yourself, the way
that you learn, the way that you take information in,
will physically change how your brain cells communicate, what they're
connected to, and what they're disconnected from. So this is
how we can actually change behaviour. When people say a
leopard can't change its spots, no, it can't. Now, look, this,

(06:38):
this doesn't actually apply to you cannot make yourself have
naturally blonde hair, you couldn't change your eye colour, you
can't make yourself taller. So yes, a leopard can't change
its spots in that regard.
But the undertone of that statement is that people can't
change their behaviour, and, and that's false.
So, the adaptability part about getting comfortable with uncertainty is
simply learning.

(07:00):
It's learning
Right, we all feel uncomfortable and we have to do
something for the first time.
Yeah. People often say, Oh, you just do this, and
I'm often my response was, Everything is easy when you
know how.
Right? So often when someone says, you just do this,
they're coming from a place of comfort or mastery of understanding,
and you're in that place of discomfort and misunderstanding or confusion.

(07:23):
So the adaptability thing is not necessarily that, you know,
we're never gonna not need to change. That's a lot
of negatives. What I mean by that is,
We are designed to adapt.
And the comfortability with uncertainty comes, the more that we adapt,
the more that we change, the more that we experience.
So the next time you're feeling uncomfortable, I want you

(07:44):
to go back to the very start of the last
time you learned to do something. And if you've been
out caring and you've been caring for a family, I
want you to go all the way back to maybe
before you even were pregnant.
Before you birthed a baby, before that you learned how
to feed that baby, care for that baby, it was
crazy and overwhelming.

(08:04):
Right? And now you do those things without even thinking.
You do those things on autopilot, there's an innate sense
of what you need to do, and especially as your
children have grown older, there's still that innate sense. Just
that care looks slightly differently now. The point there is
that when we do something which is unknown, it is
going to feel uncomfortable. Adaptability is getting comfortable knowing that

(08:29):
you have
An entire structure which governs how your brain works, so
that you can get adapted, so that you can be adaptable.
It will naturally happen. And in fact, you won't even
know that you're competent. You actually forget. And the other
way to test this theory is if go and try
to explain somebody, explain to somebody something you do without thinking.

(08:53):
So if anyone's ever taught somebody how to drive, this
is a good example.
Right? You actually have to go back and say, how
do I do that? Or if anyone's a coach in
a sport that they've played, and then they have to
go and coach a lower level, or younger children, or,
you know, teenagers, and they have to actually step through
how do I do that, you almost forget, right?
That's because you have adapted. That's because you now know

(09:15):
how to do it. And your brain has taken that
learning skill into a mastered skill, and it's kind of
put it somewhere that isn't in your working memory. It's
actually put it in a different part of your brain
called the hippocampus, but that's a conversation for another time. So,
coming back to that question of adaptability, adaptability is just growth,
it's learning. It's going to be a little bit uncomfortable.
Your brain is using huge amounts of energy to acquire

(09:37):
that information, hold that information, change, develop. And so it's tiring.
But most importantly, you are designed to do it.
And just by the nature of being human, you will
do it well, because we are adaptable species.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
OK, so we are adaptable. That's good news. And part
of being adaptable is telling ourselves that we're adaptable, but obviously,
we all need some structure in our lives. So how
do we balance that need to plan ahead and that
structure with our dislike of being uncertain about things?

Speaker 2 (10:07):
You can't predict the future. So, how do we balance
this with the need for planning and structure? So, done
is always better than perfect is a good one, but
also control the controllable. You actually cannot control anybody else
but you. You cannot control what's gonna happen tomorrow any
more than you can control what's gonna happen next year.
But it feels like your direct influence on tomorrow is easier, right?

(10:32):
So it's about coming back to the short term. Control
what you can control, plan for scenarios, plan for situations,
but you can't actually plan for something that necessarily hasn't
happened yet, right? So,
Planning is about anticipation of what might or might not happen,
and having something in place that you can execute if
there is a crisis moment. Planning within the crisis is

(10:55):
not a fun thing. It's not an effective thing, and
that's why we plan. So that we have a blueprint,
we can pull out and go, OK, this is now
the map, this is the mind map, the structure, this
is what we're gonna execute.
And that is gonna reduce stress. So anyone that's ever
been in any work environment, that's what we do all
the time, right? Something's happened, this is, this has gone wrong. OK, cool.

(11:15):
What did we do last time we did this, or
what was the plan that we put in place when
we were planning to execute in this moment, it's this thing.
And that reduces the stress because it increases certainty. We
all have a range of where we're comfortable. Some people
are really uncomfortable in an uncertainty.
You know, I work with a lot of entrepreneurs, and
they are wildly uncomfortable with what would make other people,

(11:35):
you know, curl up their toes. And I've worked with
really structured people that just do not feel comfortable unless
they have everything planned and in control. We all sit
on that spectrum somewhere, but at some point, we have
to actually come back to what we can control, and
that is actually only ourselves. We can only plan, we
cannot necessarily say exactly what is going to happen next.

(11:58):
So the plan bit is, do what you can.
Other than if you can predict the future. Like, nobody
actually has a crystal ball that is gonna be 100%
effective all the time.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
In our next episode, Helen McCabe and Jamila Risby are
transforming their uncertainty into decisiveness. It's a sliding door moment. Like,
you take a path and then you, you, the world
will shape shift around you and you will pick up
good things and bad things when you take that path,
and you will have picked up good things and bad
things when you take the other path. Um, the delay, uh,

(12:35):
from the learning of either decision, uh, isn't serving you
very well.
Mindset is created by FW Jobs Academy with support from
the Australian government's Office for Women.