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Three months ago we merged with another company. In three weeks from now, my department will be restructured. My colleagues and I do not yet know  how the new structure will look like – though there is a lot of speculation going on. We only know that we will have to follow new processes – the processes of the company we have been merged with (been bought by to be honest). We do not know how and how much these processes will be different from what we’ve got at the moment.  We will have to use new systems. We are not sure whether and how the data transfer from our current systems will be done, how long it will take and what it will involve. And we will have new team members. We are speculating on who might be part of our team. But the truth is – we cannot know – anything might happen these days.

My world is a towering stack question marks. My days start and end with uncertainty.  Whenever you you sail with favourable winds for some time, you tend to take it for granted. You develop the impression that everything is controllable and forget that anything could happen anytime. At the blink of an eye. We tend to forget that the only constant in life is change. For dealing with life – dealing with change – the most important skill is to adapt and make the best out of it.

While reflecting on my situation, trying to figure out what the best coping strategies would be, interesting, helpful thoughts keep forming in my head. I have translated them into 7 tips, which I am confident will help me dealing with the uncertainty in a very constructive way. Let me share these with you:

Tip number one: Replace your expectations with plans.

Any expectation is – if not a potential trap – at least a free ticket into disappointment. Though you can envisage and influence your future, it is not possible to control what the exact outcome will be. Being too pessimistic with your expectations will set you up for depression, being too optimistic will probably not be attainable.  Rather than having expectations about the future (good or bad), i.e. thinking about what the future will bring you, it is much more worthwhile to think about what you can do in the future. In other words: Make plans! Plan what you can actually influence and control, e.g. after merger, I will introduce myself to the new colleagues and ask them to have lunch with me, I will schedule meetings with each of them, I will have a look at the new system as soon as I can, I will have one of the new colleagues explain their processes to me, etc. etc.

Tip number two:  Prepare for different options.

As long as you do not exactly know what scenario you will have to face, plan for different options. While that might sound like additional work it will put your mind at ease and give you the feeling to have a plan B, thus being able to deal with whatever the future brings. I thought about what I would do if I ended up in a complete new team, what I would do if we could not transfer our data in due course and what I would do if  we had to deal with a transfer phase with dual processes, systems and responsibilities.

Tip number three: Check out your coping strategies.

While this might sound like an invitation to expect the worst – it is far from it. It means that you should think about your capabilities, about your strengths, about what you are good at and what you like doing. Think about similar situations of uncertainty that you have successfully lived through before. Think about how you have been coping with them. What made you help dealing with these situations? I thought about our last reorg after we bought this small company. I remembered how I managed to integrate the new team members in our team and how we trained the other employee on our systems. After that I was sure that I could cope with this current change whatever face it might have.

Tip number four: Focus on  what is under your control.

Often we have the feeling that something else – external to us – needs to change before an unbearable situation  can ever become bearable. We look into the external world and think about who and what is not the way it should be and the agony that this causes us. Suddenly it dawned on me that if I continued to look into the outside world I would be totally dependent on what is in other people’s hands. This perception hit me like a healing stroke and I thought I can only be in control of my life and my well-being, when I focus on what I am actually in control of.  This is when I started looking at how I could make the coming weeks more enjoyable for me and my colleagues on the team. I thought about all the little things that could be done to create a good working atmosphere and a happy working environment.  I found many things that I could to right away. And I did do them.

Tip number five: Recharge regularly.

Dealing with uncertainty most probably means dealing with stress. Stress, I know, especially when experienced as distress, will have its price on a physical level. Over time it will affect my blood pressure, my blood sugar, my muscle tension, my breathing rate, my cholesterol levels – basically all my organs. I know that many studies have proven that continuous stress, without the possibility of the body to relax and recharge, will eventually lead into burn-out and severe physical and psychological consequences. There are also studies that have shown that a regular (ideally daily) practice such as meditation, Yoga, Qi Gong, T’ai chi or other  physical exercises will help to deal with stress, refocus and recharge. This is when I made provision for practicing stress reduction techniques at least 3 times a week.

Tip number six. Observe yourself.

It happens to me that I get lost in a seemingly uncontrollable vicious circle:  my own negative feelings about uncertainty  tend to fuel further negative speculations, which again seem to trigger more negative feelings. Getting lost means that I am no longer able to see the process of this vicious circle. I am so involved that I end up having a tunnel vision through which I only see negative feelings about uncertainty, speculations and negative thoughts. It cost me strong will, focus and lots of practice, but now I manage to observe myself in such a way that I immediately detect when I am about to enter the vicious circle again. As soon as I realize which kind of thought process I am engaging in,  the danger of getting lost in the negative spiral seems to dissolve miraculously.  And then there is room that I can fill with positive and constructive thoughts.

Tip number seven. Practice mindfulness.

As many other people, I am either thinking about the past – trying to make sense of what happened and why it happened – or I am thinking about the future. I try to figure out the lessons learnt from the past and use them to plan and shape the future. Isn’t that what we all seemed to have been trained to do?  While that in general might be a good thing, it happens on the cost of us missing the present. Leading to our growing inability to sense what is, instead of thinking about what was and what will be. When I travelled by train last time I saw a sentence sprayed against a wall near the station. It read ‚life happens while you are planning for it’. I think there is a lot of truth in it. Especially in times of an uncertain future we must remind ourselves to mindfully perceive the presence. What we feel and perceive in the presence is certain. So whenever we get overwhelmed by an uncertain future we can focus on the presence and experience security with all our senses.

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