There is a particular kind of tiredness that comes from carrying what we cannot resolve. Most people know it: the pending decision, the response that has not arrived, the child, colleague, client or team member moving through something we cannot control, or the plan that once felt certain beginning to shift.
So we do what humans often do and try to build certainty. We plan, prepare, research, track, forecast, ask more questions and gather more information. Much of this is useful, because preparation matters and clear thinking helps us make better decisions.
But there is a point where preparation begins to carry a hidden hope. We want it to do more than support us. We want it to protect us from the discomfort of not knowing.
And that is where uncertainty begins to show us something important.
The quiet pressure to know
In this week’s Lead Always Forum, we explored uncertainty and the way it affects the choices people make in life and work.
The room was made up of people carrying ordinary, real things like work deadlines, decisions both big and small. Next steps, along with the fear of choosing the wrong ones. The kind of responsibilities that do not disappear while we attend a weekly community of practice to learn how to hold these responsibilities differently.
Uncertainty is often spoken about as if it sits somewhere outside us, in the economy, technology, politics, organisations or the future of work, and yes, it lives there too. But it also arrives in smaller and more immediate ways. It arrives in the unanswered email, the unclear role, the unresolved conversation, the delayed decision, the tender outcome, the exam result, the business risk, the plan that depends on someone else.
The question is not whether uncertainty exists. It does.
The more useful question is what it begins to do inside of us.
For some, uncertainty creates urgency.
For others, it brings anxiety, overthinking, procrastination, irritation or the need to take control. Some people become busy. Some withdraw. Some gather more information than they need or look for reassurance. Others rush to make a decision because deciding feels easier than waiting.
These responses are attempts to find steadiness when the ground feels less solid than we would like.
The problem is that they do not always help.
When responsibility becomes over-responsibility
Capable people can be especially vulnerable to this.
Most of us have grown up being rewarded for being prepared, ready, reliable, thorough and responsible. We know how to make things happen. We know how to step in, hold the detail, anticipate risk and keep moving. These are useful qualities.
But under pressure, these qualities become heavy.
Responsibility becomes over-responsibility. Preparation becomes an attempt to guarantee the outcome. Caring can become carrying. Influence can begin to look like control. Concern begin to feel like something we are personally needing to fix.
It’s only when exhaustion becomes overwhelming and we realise that we’re carrying the wrong weight.
Stephen Covey’s Circles of Influence diagram, one of the simplest yet most profound tools referred to in 1989 in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, demonstrates that there are things that are genuinely ours to carry, like our preparation and effort. Our words and boundaries. Our attention and our use of time. Our willingness to ask for help. These are within our control.
There are things we may influence, but cannot control. A conversation. Our adult children, our next promotion or relationships. At work its our team’s confidence, our client’s decision. The mood in a room and the way someone receives what we say.
And finally, there are the things that may matter deeply but sit beyond our control: other people’s choices, organisational decisions, the economy, politics, technology, the weather, the past and what others think, choose or decide. These may represent only a small part of our concern, but like the 80:20 principle, they can consume a disproportionate amount of our time, energy and attention, leaving less capacity for the areas where we can actually make a difference.
When control, influence and concern are tangled together, everything can feel equally urgent. The mind treats concern as responsibility. We begin to spend energy in places where we have very little agency, while the next honest step waits quietly in front of us.
One of the shifts in the room came when a participant recognised that she could do the work in front of her properly, give it her best attention, and still not control how it would be received. That may sound simple, but it is not small.
There is often immense relief in realising where our work ends.
Clarity does not remove uncertainty
Clarity is sometimes misunderstood.
We often think clarity means knowing what will happen, or finally having the answer. It is in fact the capacity to see the situation more accurately. It means knowing what is yours, what is not, and where your energy can be placed with integrity.
That kind of clarity does not remove uncertainty. It helps us stop adding unnecessary weight to it.
This is one of the reasons regular practice matters. Most people already know, in theory, that they should focus on what they can control. They know they should pause before reacting. They know they should not carry everything. They know that worrying about the outer circle does not change it.
Knowing does not convert to right action. Most especially when the pressure rises.
The work lies in returning to the question often enough that it becomes available when we need it.
- What is real right now?
- What am I adding through prediction or assumption?
- What is mine to do?
- What could I influence?
- What am I carrying that does not belong to me?
These questions do not need a retreat, a crisis or a major life decision. They can be asked quietly in the middle of an ordinary workday, before a conversation, after a difficult email, while waiting for an answer, or when we notice we have started to rehearse the same worry again.
That is where the practice becomes useful.
The steadiness we can build
The Lead Always Forum exists for this kind of work.
It is a place to develop the capacities that help us lead ourselves and engage more consciously with the people around us in life and work. Sometimes that looks like reflection. Sometimes it looks like conversation. Sometimes it is simply the opportunity to slow down enough to see what has been driving our response.
These practices are also what good leaders do naturally over time. They don’t rush in to escape discomfort. They pause. They recognise what is happening. They sit with the question a little longer. They resist the temptation to judge themselves, the people involved or the matter at hand too quickly. They become curious enough to see more clearly before they act.
This matters because the pace of work and life is unlikely to become simpler. Technology will keep changing. Organisations will keep adjusting. Families will keep needing us. Decisions will continue to arrive with incomplete information. We will still be asked to act before everything is known.
The aim, then, cannot be to wait until we feel certain.
We need to build steadiness.
Steadiness is not the same as having no fear. It is the capacity to stay close enough to what is real that fear does not make all the decisions for us. It allows us to prepare without pretending preparation guarantees the outcome. It allows us to care without carrying what belongs to everyone else. It allows us to act without needing to control every consequence.
This is responsible work.
A question worth carrying
Uncertainty will not disappear because we understand it better.
There will still be unanswered questions, unclear outcomes and situations that do not resolve as quickly as we would like. There will still be things we care about deeply and cannot control fully.
Perhaps the invitation is to stop asking certainty to do what it cannot do.
Perhaps the better question is: What am I carrying right now?
Then, more carefully: Is it mine to carry?
Is it mine to influence?
Is it mine to care about, without trying to control?
And if I let go, what becomes possible?
Sometimes that is enough, a little less wasted energy, a little more honesty and a lot more steadiness.
Then the time right for that single next step that is genuinely ours.
