In a constantly changing world, here is one certainty: we cannot control everything in spite of what we think. Be it in your personal or professional life, changes and uncertainty arise, causing imbalance and stress. 

In order to progress, you have to reinvent yourself, find meaning in those changes, and ways to deal with them. But how? On the 5^th of July, Martin Barbier, EDHEC 1988 and EDHEC Alumni Executive Director, presented a webinar to shed light on this question, welcoming Nina Bataille. Coach, training instructor, conference speaker and author of ‘Des vertus de l'incertitude, trouver du sens et se réinventer dans un monde en pleine mutation’, Nina explained how neurosciences and positive psychology can help you overcome stress and fear. Here are the keys to progress with confidence in an uncertain world.  

Understanding the mechanism of stress before uncertainty 

Let’s begin by quoting Jack Sparrow: “The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem”. As Nina explains, this statement means that your thoughts create your reality, so how you react mostly depends on how you see things. 

1/ The VUCA world  

What happens in your mind when you face uncertainty or big changes? You can be angry, flee or freeze. Those well-known reactions are our animal way of responding to a danger – survival instinct. Your brain doesn’t make any difference between this fear for your physical integrity and the fear for your psychological integrity. These reactions due to stress make one ineffective, and they’re the consequences of what we call the VUCA world: Volatility / Uncertainty / Complexity / Ambiguity.

The lack of certainty can indeed bring anxiety, making you inflexible, blind, unable to read valuable information and take the right decisions. In order to adapt and become efficient, you need to find ways to lower your stress. How? If you’re paralysed, do little by little; each small thing you accomplish leads you to the next. If you want to flee a situation, find an ally to help you; a friend, a colleague, or even a coach.

2/ The Kübler-Ross curve

To explain what happens when you face a change you haven’t chosen, Nina refers to the famous Kübler-Ross curve, which shows the different steps you go through. You can be shocked at first, sometimes deny the situation, feel frustrated, angry or depressed, but you also start to experiment new things that will help you to grow. Use those things to set a goal that makes sense to you and is reachable. Indeed, according to neurosciences, stress happens when your resources are lower than your constraints, so as soon as you find enough resources to go on, your stress reduces.

See positivity in uncertainty

Neurosciences also show that when you face a challenge, you can either secrete adrenaline (if you have a competitive mind), which is very positive, or cortisone (if you are anxious), which is bad on a daily basis. To reverse the process when you feel stressed, ask yourself how this situation can inspire you joy rather than fear. For example, if you are anxious to speak in public, focus on the pleasure you have to share your work or ideas. Another way to reveal the positive aspects of a challenging or uncertain situation and to feel motivated is to ask yourself what have been the positive and negative points so far, to decide what you want to keep or not in the future, and which goals you can set up accordingly, considering at least three means to reach these goals.

Learn to let go of the ‘here and now’

On another level, you also need to put things into perspective when facing uncertainty. Everything goes fast nowadays; we can get many things effortlessly (like getting information or ordering online), and it’s more and more difficult to accept that sometimes a real change must be initiated to get want you want. In the professional sphere also, things are often about immediacy and short-term visible results. Whereas reactivity is essential, don’t forget to work on long-term objectives, that are crucial as well. Nina draws a parallel with athletes, who need to find the right balance between short-term and long-term objectives. So when uncertainty prevents you from reaching your short-term goals, work on the long-term ones. Lockdown drove many companies to slow down or stop their activities and think about the long term. Being faced with a certain amount of adversity or uncertainty will help you to see effort and change in a positive way, and to learn to adapt to changing environments. 

Find the right balance on all fronts

The idea is now widespread: balance between professional life and personal life helps you to be efficient and successful at work. So, assess your priorities and the time you spend on each of them, and readjust things if necessary. You also need to find the right balance between what you let go and what you must control. To do that, you may need to work on some points, learn something new, be more observant, show more adaptability and agility… This is part of improving your soft skills, and will help you for the changes and challenges to come. 

4 tips to feel collected and confident

To help you face periods of uncertainty with confidence, let’s conclude with 4 simple recommendations from Nina:

• Observe and listen to your environment with care
• Understand and follow your needs and desires
• Accept your mistakes and learn from them  
• Cultivate your optimism

We hope you’re now convinced that crisis can make you stronger, and that you can improve your stability in an uncertain world. As Nina says, “you can’t predict uncertainty, but you can be ready for it”! 

Feel free to share your thoughts or questions with the EDHEC Alumni community, and don’t forget to cast an eye on the calendar to take part in any event or webinar you might be interested in. 

Finally, if you would like to review the entire webinar from which this article was inspired, you can find it here (webinar in English).