The article was written in co-authorship with Ruslan Kotenko How to reduce the degree of uncertainty? A strange question, right? "Define the situation, make a decision!" - common sense seems to scream at you. And our clients often understand their problem this way: I can’t cope with the simplest task that an adult should cope with, I can’t make a decision. Now we will omit the stage of therapeutic support, at which we explain to clients: what they call simple, in in reality it is not so easy to do; that it is normal not to cope with some tasks in life; that in the process of work they will understand why it was not possible to do what they themselves consider to be correct. Let's move on immediately to how you can increase certainty in an uncertain situation. To do this, it would be good to first understand what uncertainty consists of. In one of the psychological concepts of tolerance to uncertainty (and this consideration is close to us), it is believed that the situation will be uncertain: a new complex unsolvable. Now in order. If something is not in your experience, of course there is a feeling of uncertainty. How to behave in another country, at a new job, among people unknown to you? What to do if you have never been unemployed, lost a significant relationship, or been seriously ill before? All these are circumstances in which a lack of experience causes a spectrum of feelings from anxiety to helplessness, because there is not yet a ready-made template for action. A situation becomes complex when too many elements are included in it, and most of them are variables, not constants. If you need to build an IKEA cabinet, although there are a lot of parts, they are constant, as are the assembly instructions. An uncertain situation is when you are trying to assemble a cabinet from constantly changing parts. Sounds like real life, don't you think? A situation in which different elements give rise to contradictory interpretations seems insoluble. If you are simultaneously receiving incompatible information and cannot fully take either side, how do you make a decision? That's right, almost nothing. EXERCISEWhat to do? We suggest that you deal with each element separately. Even small changes can provide a feeling of greater certainty. Novelty Try to find situations in your life that are similar to the current one. If you have previously encountered illness, lack of money, or the threat of dismissal, then you already have some experience of behavior in such circumstances. Yes, this is only an analogue, but such support is better than no support at all. And if you really don’t have such experience at all, then compare it with something that at least vaguely resembles: “the threat of dismissal is like the fear of not getting into university”, “being afraid of illness is like worrying about the weather during vacation ". When you find an analogue, you can figure out what to do. Complexity Here you can go in two ways: reduce the number of elements and/or select the most constant ones. When you follow online the incoming news about the dollar exchange rate, the number of cases, government decisions, you find yourself on a powder keg: “it’s about to explode.” Clear the information space of unnecessary information. Which one will really significantly influence your elections? How often do I need to receive new information in order to choose the correct behavior? Obviously not every 5 minutes. Therefore, clear social networks and other channels of unnecessary noise. This is especially important now. UndecidabilityIf you trust multiple conflicting channels of information equally, you will be torn. It is very difficult to sit on two chairs. Select. You cannot sit at home and go to a meeting at the same time - you have to choose. And the sooner you decide for yourself what you trust, the more certain the situation will become. Then you can change your mind. But at each moment in time you need to understand exactly what you will rely on. You can really make a mistake in your choice, it happens. But if not"