I have shared this with several of you lately: My most used phrase from my real estate days…
“I don’t know, let me find out.”
Someone wise, I wish I could remember who, stressed to me as a very young Realtor (20 years old) to feel confident to say I don’t know.
And I took it to heart. And each and every time it was 100% okay to say it. As long as I followed through and followed up- which I always did, people were find with me not knowing.
This memory came back to me a few weeks ago when orchestrating a group around the last chapter of John Maxwell’s book Everyone Communicates, Few Connect. It’s something that he refers to in that chapter, which happens to be my favorite chapter of the book. Talk about a strong finish!
As with most things, there is a deeper level of I don’t know at this point in my life.
Because.
I have a habit of having to know things, figure things out, and in the face of not knowing, making something up that makes sense to me. Sometimes it true and sometimes it isn’t. Which is a problem.
What I have been working on all year (and will continue, probably forever) is not having to know everything. It is in experiencing peace in the not knowing. It is trusting that things will be revealed to me when the time is right. It is not ruminating over things, trying to figure out the answers. It is to be able to let go of having to know or even trying to figure it out.
Go back a few days to the post called Necessary.
It’s exhausting to try to figure things out. Sometimes there are no answers! Also, you can make stuff up, but that is not usually a good strategy. We can drive ourselves into a lot of mental discomfort trying to find answers. Some things just don’t make sense.
Where are you on this- scale from 1-10? What would you like to do differently where not knowing is concerned?
It is not just about your own personal life and relationships, it extends to having peace regarding what is going on in the world and even things that don’t concern you that you are trying to figure out.
Learning to live with uncertainty- well, that is certainly one thing 2020 has given us the opportunity to learn. We have always been living with uncertainty, it just hasn’t been as glaring for most of us as it has been this year.
Some things we can’t control, somethings are none of our business, some things are not worth our precious time.
It is different for all of us. No comparison, no judgement. Just learning and progress.