do you find that you often question a decision you've already made because you're no longer
certain that it's the best decision if so this could be too too intolerance of uncertainty in
today's video we're going to be talking about the relationship between second guessing and
intolerance of uncertainty and what you can do to stop second guessing yourself
hi everyone we all have to make decisions from time to time and sometimes it's not clear if
we've made the best decision it's natural to second guess yourself at times but if you
find that you're second guessing yourself a lot this may be due to intolerance of uncertainty
and questioning whether you made the perfect decision so in today's video we're going to
be talking about how to recognize and eliminate second guessing yourself but before I get into
that just a couple of disclaimers to go over I'm a registered psychologist in the province
of British Columbia Canada and this video is for informational purposes only it is not intended as
a substitute or replacement for advice from your doctor or mental health professional
now with those things out of the way let's start talking about second guessing um now
in a prior video I talked about the manifestation of intolerance of uncertainty which is associated
with excessive information gathering before making a decision I use the example of doing lots
and lots of research and reading tons of reviews before making a decision to buy a digital camera
you went through that process you did your research and you decided on the digital camera
that you wanted to buy you buy the camera and at first you feel pretty happy with your decision
but have you ever been in a situation like this
where you start to question whether or not you made the right decision
did you actually buy the right camera or was there a better camera that you could have bought
the second guessing is an example of intolerance of uncertainty and that the whole purpose of
reviewing your decision and questioning whether or not you made the right decision
is all aimed at gaining certainty about whether you made the right decision or not
so when you're questioning a decision that you've already made what you're doing is
essentially relitigating the decision and thinking about the information that
you had going into making the decision and reviewing it over and over again
but what can also happen in the second guessing process is that you begin to start seeking out new
information to help you determine whether or not the decision that you've already made to buy that
digital camera was the right decision this can take on the form of researching new cameras that
have come out since you bought your digital camera and reading reviews on all of those newer cameras
it could be reading long-term reviews of the camera that you bought to see
if other people have found the camera to still perform well after a while
all of these behaviors are designed to eliminate the uncertainty around your decision and to try
and answer the question did I make the right decision about which camera I bought yes or no
now you might be wondering look so what so what if I second guess myself so what if I want some
clarity or clarification as to whether or not I made the right decision isn't that a good thing
well in the context of someone who's worrying excessively the second guessing doesn't really
serve any positive benefits first of all it makes a person really really inefficient
they've already spent a whole bunch of time researching and gathering information before
finally making the decision to buy the camera
and by engaging in second guessing they're spending a whole bunch more time reviewing that
information again or reviewing new information to confirm the decision that's already been made
questioning the decision you've already made also tends to undermine your confidence
ask yourself this question if you were confident in your decision making if you
were confident that you make good and reasonable decisions would you have to
constantly review your decisions to determine whether or not they were good decisions
people who are confident make decisions and then move forward their decision move forward with
their decisions and if the decision turns out to be a mistake then they deal with the mistake then
they don't assume that they have potentially made a poor decision and review it to confirm
whether or not it actually was a poor decision therefore by engaging in the
second guessing and questioning the decision what you're doing is actually undermining
your confidence you're telling yourself that you're not good at making decisions
so if you can relate to this if you find yourself often questioning decisions you've
already made and you recognize that this is a form of intolerance of uncertainty that you regularly
engage in of this how how do you go about changing this well the first thing is to recognize that
you're second guessing and to recognize that this is a form of intolerance of uncertainty it's not
you being responsible and diligent and reviewing a decision to make sure it's the right decision
it's you undermining yourself because you're no you're not sure you made the right decision
and once you recognize that you're engaging in second guessing Behavior
or questioning a decision you've already made the key is to change your behavior
what this means is that you stop doing the things that you're doing to second-guess yourself
so what that might mean is when you catch yourself reading reviews about new digital
cameras that have come out since you bought your camera ask yourself why am I doing this
if you're doing it because you're just really interested in digital cameras
then by all means go ahead read those reviews enjoy it however
if you're doing this because you're trying to see if there's a better camera that's come out since
you bought your camera this is when you need to disengage from that behavior maybe you need to
give yourself for example a six-month moratorium from looking at reviews of digital cameras so you
don't fall into that trap essentially you want to engage in behaviors that demonstrate an openness
to the uncertainty regarding whether or not you made the right decision it's an acceptance that
you've already made the decision you bought the digital camera based on your best evaluation of
the information that you had at the time and you're not going to review it any further
so in this way challenging this form of manifestation of intolerance of uncertainty
is really about eliminating intolerance of uncertainty behaviors that you might
engage in after the fact it's essentially eliminating information gathering to determine
whether or not you made the best decision and just tolerating the uncertainty that
maybe you didn't make the best decision maybe you made a decision that was wrong
but you made the decision and this is the digital camera that you have
so it can also help Foster a sense of contentment that not everything you do
and then not every decision you have to make has to be confirmed as the absolute perfect decision
and so by doing this you're building tolerance for uncertainty because you
no longer have to seek confirmation about the effectiveness of your decision making
and this could result in you feeling more confident more content and less anxious because
you're not constantly seeking out examples of potential mistakes that you might have made
so I hope that gives you a better understanding a better
sense of how second guessing yourself and questioning decisions you've already made
how these things are associated with intolerance of uncertainty and how
eliminating those second guessing behaviors you can build your overall tolerance for uncertainty
um I'd love to hear any questions or comments that you have about this so please leave me some
comments in the comment section down below if you've been enjoying my videos and would
like to see more please hit that subscribe button and notification Bell and you'll be
alerted every week when I post a new video so that's all for today's video as always thank
you for making it all the way to the end of this video and I will see you in the next one