The Illusion of Certainty

May 29, 2020

I came into 2020 with an undeniable feeling of optimism. I was certain it was going to be a good year. I was sure because it was there in black and white in my diary. Stimulating and worthwhile work for fantastic clients around the world. Training and coaching sessions scheduled right through to November. We all know what happened next, an unwelcome and uninvited microscopic invader come to town. Damn! The certainty on which my optimism was based disappeared overnight, and for a while, it felt like an unmanageable loss.

But what had I actually lost? Nothing in life is guaranteed after all. Any number of events could have happened to get in the way of my plans for the year. To be fair, they probably would have done and I’d just deal with them like I know I’m capable of doing. Being certain about tomorrow is an illusion created by us to help us all feel better, to plan, to feel secure, to breathe. It’s a very helpful illusion yet an illusion all the same.

Certainty of needing my brolly?

So I lost the illusion of certainty, something that didn’t really exist apart from in my head. Could I create something in place of it? Something to restore my balance, and my optimism? You bet I could, and what’s more, I did.

Over the last week I have created the illusion of trust. Trust in myself, my clients, my knowledge and experience, my flexibility, and my resilience. I’m even beginning to trust the British weather, and I don’t get to do that very often. It may be an illusion, but since everything created by our minds is, then I’m choosing a really helpful one and I feel better already. whatever the weather, British or otherwise, the sun always comes up in the morning – I trust that.

Thoughts

The clever Principal said “You are going to be fifty anyway”

On a holiday to the Philippines, I was lucky enough to see something both clever and stunning. I went to the north of the country to visit the one thing I really wanted to see there, the rice terraces. In the mountainous north, rice fields are just as required to grow the crop needed to feed the people as they are in the flatter lowlands. But with less flat land available, the population optimised what they had and created terraced fields to grow the rice. This is what clever, and in this case stunning, looks like. It embodies the mantra

Purpose – Start where you are; use what you have; do what you can.

If you could only have one of the following, which would you choose? £500k; or greater awareness to a cause close to your heart; or to inspire others to greatness? This week I read one of those ‘great-news-stories’ that pop up every once in a while. An 11-year-old boy slept in a tent in his back garden for 365 days, the purpose was to raise money for a hospice after fundraising events were cancelled due to covid. After he had done the entire year under canvas, he had raised £500k; he had raised awareness of the cause; and he has become

Commitment to your decision, yet flexible in your approach

Can I do commitment? Sure, I can. During lockdown, with gyms closed, I decided to do ‘Couch to 5K’, the running app. I loved it, I was really exhilarated by the continuing challenge and I completed the nine-week course by running three lots of 5K. I feel so much fitter for having done it – this is the value I gained by committing to the app. I run an internal strategy for pretty much most things that I do. I call it ‘the reward before the work’ strategy. Take my run for example, it is a ‘there-and-back circuit’. As I

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Thanks to Hayley Gelder and Dan Stevens.