How to Handle Uncertainty with Confidence

This article is part of a series on how to cope with common feelings that can be tough to experience. Here, experts provide simple strategies for acknowledging and managing fear of uncertainty.

Planning and predictability can help us feel in control. But in life, there are many instances where there’s no guarantee that things will go the way we thought they would, even when we do our best to prepare. Our relationships, finances, health, the economy—they all come with built-in uncertainty.

“The reality is that we are always functioning in the midst of uncertainty,” says Tynessa Franks, Ph.D., a licensed clinical psychologist who practices in Atlanta. “None of us knows what will happen in our life, moment to moment.”