Managing Uncertainty, with Liz Fosslien

(air fizzing) (air clicking) (bells chiming) Headspace Studios. (upbeat music) Hi, my name is Liz Fosslien, and welcome to Radio Headspace. I'm guest hosting Radio Headspace this week, and I'm so happy to be here. Along with my co-author, Mollie West Duffy, we research and write about emotions in the workplace. Our work focuses on equipping people with knowledge and tools that will help them navigate really big feelings at work because it's hard. And that's exactly what I'll be discussing this week. I'll cover how to manage comparison, uncertainty, anger, imperfections, and burnout, things that I can safely assume most people in the working world have dealt with. And if you haven't, then I want your job. So today I'll be discussing uncertainty, which is inescapable and a source of a lot of anxiety at work. I'll discuss the impact of uncertainty in our lives, how to manage it, and how to build the self-confidence to know you can handle whatever work or life throws at you. (gentle music) (rain pattering) Okay, so humans hate uncertainty, so we are hardwired to feel really uncomfortable when we don't know what's gonna happen next. There's research that actually shows we would rather be 100% certain that something bad is gonna happen tomorrow than have a 50% chance of that bad thing happening. And that's because when we know it's gonna happen, we feel like we're more in control 'cause there's just one eventuality that we have to plan for. And I would say over the last year in particular when it comes to work, it's been a really uncertain year. There is no leader that I've spoken with that has been like, "This is great. "Everything's going smoothly." And so I think, one, when things feel up in the air, it's a very natural, normal response to feel anxiety, to feel bad in the face of that. And two, it is sort of a universal thing among people who work that this past year has been really uncertain and that is stressful. (gentle music) (rain pattering) I remember I had a friend who was moving over to a new team and this was a job that she had really wanted, she was really excited, and it was this classic emotional arc of when you first hear the news you're thrilled, and then as the start date of the new role approaches you get more and more anxious. And so all of that excitement sort of melts into stress. And she started doing what I see commonly and what I also have been guilty of doing myself which is something called anxious fixing. And so anxious fixing is when instead of sitting with that uncomfortable emotion and trying to figure out what specifically might be driving your anxiety, you just start doing stuff 'cause it feels good to be able to cross things off your task list. And so she created all this work for herself and the people around her that, you know, she...