How to Master Uncertainty
The Pivot Process
Take a moment to name a few life events you think most adults have in common. When our team did this drill the first time, our list included: self-discovery, leaving home, finding your purpose, growing your family, and the inevitable Black Swan. We’ve likely all experienced these. In fact, our military friends probably experience them every three or four years! Though the particulars of each will vary person to person, the forces of these five changes, and a host of others, push and pull against us with the force of uncertainty. But, just because we are acted on by a force, doesn’t mean we have to acquiesce to it! We can choose to flow with, push back, or even control uncertainty. By constantly learning about our environment, ourselves, and the future, we can anticipate uncertainty and how it will affect us. We can then gather energy and resources during times of stability to enable us to push back, flow with, or control impending changes. Sounds simple! And it is, but consistent and effective mastery of uncertainty takes structured discipline. The Pivot Process provides the structure, you still have to provide the discipline. It goes a little something like this:
1. Accept Change Now. Accept that change is inevitable and assess your risk of exposure to changes unique to your circumstances. By doing so, you have the opportunity to anticipate and proactively adapt to change.
2. Develop Insight Through Learning, Training, and Mentorship. New information stirs the imagination and prepares you for the coming change. You can accomplish both by tapping into relevant resources, and learning all you can from them.
3. Create Options Through Networking, Exploration, and Accruing Resources. Options are relevant opportunities created through intention, effort, and a deeper understanding of the future. Making the right interpersonal connections, exploring new interests and skill-sets, and gathering capital of all sorts allows you potential that can be acted on when you decide.
4. Envision the End (Feeling, Goal or State). Imagine what is to come once this change is complete -- endless, titillating possibilities with their own set of emotions. The image you generate might just be where your heart and mind want to go. Check your alignment to that vision and assess if a change in vector is needed to get you there. Then...
5. Assess Your 360 Capital. Every choice has a cost -- 360 capital is the combination of social, financial, spiritual, and intellectual resources needed to implement a specific option. Either you’ve got enough or you don’t. You likely won’t know which exactly, but you can measure your capital against projected risk to determine if pressing forward is acceptable for where you are and what you have.
6. Decide and Take Massive Action! Once the decision is made, make a commitment to put one hundred percent of your energy and focus into action.
7. Keep Moving Forward. The mission is to change, but doubt fear, and regret are real threats to mitigate; the goal is to not worry about whether you’ve made the right decision, but instead sustain confidence because you made the decision the right way.
These steps might sound intuitive, or like concepts you’ve heard before. If so, that’s great! They aren’t meant to be cosmic, but are instead a set of detailed, organized, and yes familiar methods for growth. They are detailed so that you are challenged to develop criteria to achieve each step. They are organized so that you know where to go next when a step is completed. And they are likely familiar because you’ve heard variations of these concepts communicated in advice that, at times, can be more vague than useful; especially when it comes to advice on decisions and decisiveness. These steps are designed to defeat two emotional extremes: paralysis from an overwhelming amount of choices, and impulse driven by the perception that something just HAS to be done, even without all the tools necessary to be successful.
Each of these extremes bound a sliding scale of risks posed by the ebbs and flows of life. The sweet spot in the middle is the PIVOT; where complete information, resources, and decisiveness balance the forces of change.
Steps 1-3 are the gathering steps. During them, you’re gathering awareness of your situation, and what you’re capable of achieving with the resources you have. Once you have a good handle on those, you gather more resources that are relevant to your situation that will reduce your risk, and grow your potential.
Pivot takes classic approaches to capital beyond money or social context. We deem it necessary to consider all relevant resources a person needs to make a potential change; given that each resource is often dependent, and acted on, by the others. We call the resulting, all-encompassing capital, 360 Capital, and measure it against an individual’s goals in steps 4 and 5.
Steps 4 and 5 have you assess yourself and your desires, then assess if you have what you need (resources gathered in steps 2 and 3) to make those desires a reality. If you don’t have what you need, you’ll have to return to steps 2 and 3 to gather more.
Steps 6 and 7 are all about decisive action. You’ve done the preparation necessary in steps 1 through 5, and now it’s time to execute!
In subsequent articles, the Pivot Solutions team will dive deeper into each step of the process while introducing tools and resources you can use to act on what you learn. These tools and resources are the products of decades of military, leadership, and adaptation experience gained by a diverse team of current and former military leaders. They are the culmination of all the mentorship we’ve received and given over the years neatly packaged and accessible to whomever needs it. We are excited to share what we’ve learned with you! We’re also excited to learn from you as well, so we’ll begin our acquaintance with a question:
What uncertainties are you preparing for?