Are You Choosing Unhappiness Over Uncertainty?

Today is a brand new day, full of possibility and opportunity for you. Let me ask you a question…

What have you done today to move towards your dream?

What did you do yesterday to move towards your dream?

What did you do last week to move towards your dream?

If you said “nothing,” you're not alone.

Of course, we need to take action if we want to achieve our dreams.

And yet most people don't take action at all, let alone the kind of consistent, sustained action necessary to achieve their dreams. In fact, they don't even try.

Why? Fear. Specifically, fear of the unknown.

Uncertainty and the prospect of failure can be really scary noises in the shadows.

This is why most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.

Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.

Think of all the people who stay in loveless or toxic or abusive relationships longer than they should.

Think of all the people who stay stuck in a dead-end day job they hate instead of starting their own business.

Think of all the people who don't pursue that intense passion they've had for years.

Why do they do that? Because they'd rather live with unhappiness than uncertainty.

Better the devil you know, right?

By avoiding uncertainty, you are choosing unhappiness by default.

But certainty is an illusion. Nothing stays the way it is.

The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “There is nothing permanent except change.”

Heraclitus also said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”

Change is the only constant. There is no stasis.

If you're not moving forward, you're moving backwards. If you're not growing, you're decaying.

Constant change enables unlimited growth.

Without unlimited growth, you are now, in this moment, all you are ever going to be. Let that sink in for a moment.

I recently came across this definition of Hell that really struck me: “On your last day on earth, the person you became will meet the person you could have become.” That's pretty profound.

What that means is that at the end of your life, you're on your death bed and you realise all the ways you sabotaged yourself from fulfilling your potential. You get a sense of all the things you could have become, everything you could have achieved if only you had gotten out of your own way.

Our greatest limitations are self-imposed. Those limitations often come in the form of resistance to risk and uncertainty.

Earl Nightingale said, “Most people tiptoe their way through life, hoping they make it safely to death.”

You're worried about taking a risk because you're afraid you'll make a mistake. The only real mistake you can make is not moving forward.

Progress always involves risk. Always.

Your level of fulfilment in life is directly related to your willingness to lean into uncertainty; to dance with uncertainty.

Jim Rohn said, “If you are unwilling to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.”

We live the lives we're willing to tolerate.

If you aren’t willing to tolerate the risk of uncertainty, then you’ve basically accepted staying unhappy in that situation.

So by trying to avoid the risk of uncertainty, you haven't actually avoided risk at all. You've just substituted one risk for another.

You may have avoided the risk of uncertainty, but you've sacrificed something far greater: your potential, your dreams, and your future happiness.

Embrace uncertainty. Don’t choose unhappiness by default by trying to avoid uncertainty. Do something to move closer to your dreams.