Remaining Positive Through Uncertainty: A Personal Primer
There have been times in my career to which I can say that the future was bright but muddled with uncertainty. Maybe, this was due to a decision to make changes in an organization. Or, maybe we have decided to completely re-engineer a solution that we felt was working right. Maybe there was a change you were expecting from someone that you simply have not received the answer you were expecting. As a younger person, I found that I would allow emotion to overwhelm me and I would allow this to fester. As I grew a bit older, I learned to add some additional coping skills that helped me through these types of periods. Here's a few tips I feel have helped me and potentially can help you.
When a situation feels overwhelming, stop wondering and start asking.
Effective communication requires feedback, in order for you to actually get feedback, I had to find the ability to overcome the fear of being told "I can't tell you." When I didn't ask what was going on, or if I had concerns, rather than voice them I would allow an idea to fester in my head on what was going on. The more this festering persisted, the more I felt my own personal anxiety increasing and my days would become fairly miserable.
As I grew more confident in myself both in business and in life, I found that asking the difficult questions became less difficult. The willingness to hear bad news is really something I have tried always to prepare myself for, but creating bad news in our my mind became a terrible habit. Once I stopped wondering and started asking, I felt far less apprehensive about situations in my life.
Remember, time never stops...
Ok, I really do not want to get too esoteric about my process, but let's just think about time. Aristotle spoke of the idea of potential infinite - the idea that there really is no finality to the concept of infinity. Time is infinite and because of that, the situation you currently are in will likely change. Issues that may present themselves could be resolved by "waiting them out." That might sound fairly boring, but if you took the time to ask questions about your current situation, you can easily learn that there is a purpose behind the lack of real cohesiveness to whatever plan, or lack thereof have been introduced to the situation.
I had to learn, the hard way sometimes, that there are things that are just out of my hands. I can only control what is within my power and I had to learn to accept this as a person. While I can influence decisions or assist others in their process, there must be a realization that some things are not my responsibility. During a point in my life, I always used to feel as if that all "bad situations" required me to be a savior of types. To be a hero when no one would show the ability to be a hero. The problem with that was this... I was not fully informed on the situation and realistically, I just ran with what I thought helped. Contrary to what I thought were good intentions, I made the problem worse. I didn't fully understand the depth of what I was doing in regards to the grand plan and this lead to mistakes being made. Situations like that taught me to adjust how I react in situations, to be less self-serving and to be more interested in the greater plan.
Put on the face that others need...
People in certain positions in either companies or just life in general really required me to take a different attitude toward everyone. The old frustrations that would get publicly broadcasted via my general demeanor or body language really hurt me. They gave off bad vibes which helped absolutely no one through times that may be difficult. The change was required for me to the the positive person. I needed to stop sulking and start being part of positive mental states amongst those I was around. By being good to people, remaining with a positive attitude during the worst of times, could lead to people really believing in you.
Stop asking "why does this suck so much" and "why did this X person run that command that broke things" all the time and find out how you can resolve these problems. Stop discussing the troubles of the past in ways that make you seem as if they hang over the people you are with forever. Rather, consider discussions that focus on the benefits of making changes that can assist those who may be impacted by them.
Years ago, I worked somewhere to which I accidentally caused a portion of a file system cluster to fail replication due to a misunderstanding of a command. I was in fear of me being the cause of a major issue that senior administrators had to spend time resolving. Immediately, I felt negative... I sulked, I moaned and I complained about how dumb I was. What did I provide to the situation here? Nothing. I was not helping anyone and detracting from progress. While I must say that it's difficult to be sunshine and lollipops when half of some storage needs to be rebuilt by others, I can't say my poor response helped anything get built properly.
I looked back at the situation years later and considered the benefits I may have had from simply offering to shadow those senior admin, watch and ask questions. Maybe the outcome could have been even better, and let to me feeling more confident about the future. The uncertainty of the system failure filled me with fear and self-doubt. The only real positive outcome from this situation was having some real personal growth years later by recognizing the mistakes I had made.
Even when it's not easy, just be kind to others...
I try to give off an energy that says, "I like you and I want to be around you" to everyone. I do my best to make feel that they are doing great things and let them know how much I appreciate them. Sometimes when people hear these things, they begin to recognize you as someone who makes them feel good. Overall in life, try to make the others around you feel good. They'll appreciate you for it. You can help make this positivity feel infectious and have others take a similar demeanor. Be good to others, they'll be good to you.
Change comes and goes, people need to remain solid. That's what I try to do. I try to remains solid for me and others. I had to learn from days of being negative or unhappy that there was little to offer a situation. Be the part of the change people remember because you helped remain strong and positive. It will assist your overall mindset and the people around you.