today i'm going to be talking about the two ways to build tolerance for uncertainty
hey everybody today i'm going to be continuing this series on worry management and the last few
videos that have been talking about this really important concept of intolerance of uncertainty
and in today's video i'm going to be talking about the two ways to build tolerance for uncertainty
now before i get into that just a couple of disclaimers to go over
i am a registered psychologist in the province of british columbia canada and this video is for
informational purposes only it is not intended as a replacement or substitute for advice from
your doctor or mental health professional so with those two things out of the way
let's start talking about building tolerance for uncertainty
so if you've seen some of my previous videos you know that we've sort of been building up to this
idea and this concept of building tolerance for uncertainty because intolerance of uncertainty is
the fuel that drives this worry engine and so i've talked about the concept of intolerance of
uncertainty how intolerance of uncertainty serves to fuel and drive the worry engine in a previous
video i talked about the various different manifestations of intolerance of uncertainty
the various different ways that intolerance of uncertainty can play out in a person's thinking
patterns in a person's behavior so today we're going to be putting all of this information
together and talking about how you go about actually building your tolerance for uncertainty
so the key to understanding building tolerance for uncertainty is to understand that when we
talk about worries we're talking about thoughts that are predictions of something that's going to
happen so the idea is to reconceptualize your worry or think about your worries
not so much as worries or factual things that are going to happen but essentially predictions
and hypotheses of what's going to happen so the key way we build tolerance for uncertainty
is through behavioral exposure to uncertainty essentially doing what i call
tolerating uncertainty experiments so the idea with these tolerating uncertainty experiments
is to put those predictions to the test and see how accurate those predictions actually
are so for example if i'm avoiding returning a phone call to a friend because i'm concerned
they might be upset with me i might come up with a tolerating uncertainty experiment that gets me to
call my friend so that's the behavior that's the tolerating uncertainty experiment
behavior that i'm going to do return the phone call to my friend
the next thing to think about then is what is it that i'm worrying about what is my
worry telling me is going to happen when i return the phone call to a friend
so the idea is you're setting up the experiment and you're thinking about the hypothesis
the hypothesis or the prediction ahead of time and so what i'll often give my clients is a worksheet
to help them organize these tolerating uncertainty experiments in their mind and i'll put a link to
the worksheet down below so that you can download it and see it for yourself so the first two
the first two parts of the worksheet you do before you actually engage in the experiment
come up with the chosen behavior and then you think about what is it that i'm worrying is
going to happen what does my worry predict or what is my worry telling me is going to happen
now this is where worry awareness training becomes really important we talked about
worry awareness training right at the beginning of this series on worry management you need to know
what it is that you're worrying about before you can actually begin to manage the worry
so the worry becomes central in this experiment this is what we're testing
we're testing whether or not the worry what we worry about is actually going to happen
so now i've come up with my behavior i've come up with my hypothesis the worry prediction then i go
and do the experiment i actually pick up the phone and i call my friend this is the data collection
portion of the experiment and i write down and i record what actually happened i called my friend
and they were really pleased to to hear from me they were surprised why i hadn't returned their
call and uh they had some really exciting news to tell me and it turned out really well or i
call my friend and they tell me that they've got some bad news they just lost their job and they
were calling me up to get some support or to get some advice as to what they should do
or i call my friend and they are really angry with me and they're really upset because i keep flaking
out on them and i'm never available for them when they call whatever the outcome i record it
and then i come up with my conclusion based on the outcome was my worry accurate
was my worry prediction did it actually come true so if you think about this if you do say a hundred
of these tolerating uncertainty experiments and 95 of the 100 tolerating uncertainty experiments
turn out negatively so they turn out badly 95 of the time what does that tell you about uncertainty
well what it tells you about uncertainty is that uncertainty is bad
that uncertainty is something to be afraid of that most of the time the vast majority of the time
when i'm uncertain about something bad things will happen and so what i should do is get
better at avoiding uncertainty get better at eliminating uncertainty in my life if
95 of the time these tolerating uncertainty experiments turn out badly
but what if 95 of the 100 experiments that i do turn out either neutral or positively
what does that tell me about uncertainty
well what it tells me about uncertainty is 19 times out of 20
the uncertainty is just fine nothing bad happens and so how do you think that's going to change
how i orient myself towards uncertainty how do you think that's going to change how i
think about and feel about uncertainty well i'm probably not going to be as afraid of uncertainty
if through a hundred experiences with it it's turned out just fine
so the idea here isn't to try and convince yourself through logic or just rational thinking
that uncertainty is okay the idea here is for you to determine how you should feel about uncertainty
through experiences with uncertainty and by setting up these tolerating uncertainty
experiments you're giving yourself explicit examples of times where you
did something you were uncertain about you were worrying that this was going to happen
and what you were worrying about didn't actually happen
and the more you see to the more you sort of see and the more you observe and the more you
demonstrate to yourself that the things that you worry about don't actually happen the less
weight the less uh importance the less value you're going to put on your worries
it's kind of like if every time the weatherman said that it was going to rain it was sunny
and every time the weatherman said it was going to be sunny it rained essentially the weatherman's
terrible at predicting the weather so the next time the weatherman says it's going to rain
you're not going to take your umbrella because you know it's going to be sunny
if your predictions are not very good you're not going to put much weight
or much value in those predictions and that's all worry is it is a prediction
so that's one way of building tolerance for uncertainty actually setting up these tolerating
uncertainty experiments using the worksheet that you can download and fill out you fill out the
first two sections before you do the experiment what is the experiment and what is your prediction
then you do it you record the data and you record your conclusion
so it's sort of forward-thinking pre-planned tolerating uncertainty experiment
the second way of building tolerance for uncertainty is taking advantage of naturally
occurring opportunities in your life to do things that you're uncertain about the reality is
we're faced with uncertainty every day multiple times a day and the vast majority of the time
that uncertainty is turning out fine we're just not even really aware we're not even
processing that the uncertainty is turning out fine so what i often encourage clients to do
to try and uh take advantage of naturally occurring opportunities to be more tolerant of
uncertainty is to imagine the following question tattooed to the frontal lobe of their brain
so essentially they're filtering their world through this question and the question is
if i were more tolerant of uncertainty what would i do in this situation
if i were more tolerant of uncertainty would i order
the same thing i always order in this restaurant or would i order something different
if i were more tolerant of uncertainty would i ask that person out for a date or would i
stay in my seat and not say anything if i were more tolerant for uncertainty would i
answer the call even though the i don't recognize the number or would i let it go to voicemail
if i were more tolerant of uncertainty would i speak up and express my opinion in
this meeting at work or would i stay quiet and wait to see what everybody else says
you have countless opportunities to tolerate uncertainty on a daily basis you just have to
look for those opportunities and take advantage of those opportunities when they present themselves
if i were more tolerant of uncertainty what would i do in this situation
you don't have to do all of the tolerating uncertainties things but just be aware of it
just keep that question in mind help that orient you towards uncertainty to look for uncertainty
in your day-to-day life and every once in a while do the uncertain thing and see what happens
because what you do by doing these tolerating uncertainty experiments either
the ones that are pre-planned or the ones that are just taking advantage of naturally
occurring opportunities that come up you can think of what you're doing kind of like
putting money in a tolerating uncertainty bank account what you're doing is you're
having conscious explicit experiences with uncertainty where you think about what it
is that you are concerned is going to happen and then compare it to what actually happens
and by being aware of that and seeing that the uncertainty doesn't turn out badly all the time
or rarely turns out badly what you're doing is it's almost like you're making deposits
in this tolerating uncertainty bank account each time you do one of these experiments
and so through these ex through these experiences with uncertainty the more and more of these
experiences that you have with uncertainty where uncertainty turns out well or fine or not negative
that tolerating uncertainty bank account gets bigger and bigger and so when you're faced with
a bigger uncertainty in life what you can do is you can draw from this bank account you can
think about and reflect on all of the various experiences you've had with uncertainty in your
life where it turned out fine and so if all of those uncertainties turned out fine there's
a good chance this big uncertainty that i'm concerned about is going to turn out fine as well
so those are the two main ways of building tolerance for uncertainty planning ahead
and actually setting up experiments and taking advantage of the numerous opportunities you have
in your day-to-day life to tolerate uncertainty if i were more tolerant of uncertainty what would i
do in this situation of all the things i do with my clients of all the the skills and tools that i
share with my clients i find that for clients who really take this on take on that question
if i were more tolerant of uncertainty what would i do in this situation
and they apply it to their life i see the biggest change and the most growth because people just
approach life in a different way all of those manifestations of intolerance
of uncertainty that i talked about in a previous video they get chipped away at
because a person just becomes more and more oriented towards doing things that they're
uncertain about and they get more and more confident that it's going to be okay because
they have all of this experience with uncertainty that demonstrates that it's going to be okay
so that's what i'd encourage you to do if you want to build your tolerance for uncertainty
think about some tolerating uncertainty experiments and actually try them out
download the worksheet fill it out and do the experiment see how it goes
keep that question at the forefront of your mind do things on a daily basis that come up
from time to time if i were more tolerant of uncertainty what would i do in this situation
even if you just think about it that way you can be you can start to think about and see
all the various opportunities that you have in your day-to-day life to tolerate uncertainty
and those are all opportunities that you can take to build your tolerance for uncertainty
and by doing so you start to cut off that fuel supply that drives this worry engine so
i would love to hear some of your ideas and thoughts and some of your tolerating
uncertainty experiments that uh you might be planning on doing or you might have done and how
they'd turn out so please leave me some comments down below if you have any thoughts or questions
as well let me know i hope you're finding these videos helpful if you're interested in seeing
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you for making it all the way to the end of this video and i will see you in the next one