Risk, Uncertainty, Fear, and Creation
Oftentimes, people confuse risk and uncertainty.
Risk addresses known unknowns. Risk can be modeled with probabilities that predict the likelihood of an event occurring.
Uncertainty accounts for unknown unknowns. We don’t know what we don’t know. We can’t model or predict uncertainty.
Most of our life is actually dealing with uncertainty, not risk. We can’t predict what will happen. Life is one big unknown unknown.
Photo by Paolo Nicolello on Unsplash
Does this scare you?
The outcomes of your life are not foregone conclusions. I find this a relief.
Can you imagine if you didn’t have the agency to influence your outcomes? Not only would that be boring, it would be suffocating.
There is no such thing as a certain future. There is such a thing as a default future, however. And this is what it looks like.
A created future occurs when you embrace uncertainty and stand in possibility.
Sometimes we’re so busy trying to protect what feels secure that we limit what is possible.
Most people do one of two things when faced with uncertainty. They either stay stuck in fear, or they activate creativity and curiosity to create their future.
How can fear and creativity co-exist?
Author Elizabeth Gilbert writes, “Your fear will always be triggered by your creativity, because creativity asks you to enter into realms of uncertain outcome… I made a decision a long time ago that if I want creativity in my life then I will have to make space for fear, too.”
The definition of courage is feeling the fear and doing it anyway.
Most of the time, what stands on the other side of fear is desire. In order to move toward your desires, you often need to move through fear.
If fear has been an inhibitor for you, why not change your relationship with fear?
What is your fear trying to protect you from? If it’s a perceived threat and not a real threat, then you can reassure your fear that you’ve got this.
The next time you face uncertainty (hint: everyday), ask yourself what you would need to do to create your future. Then do that.
