Switch Craft: The Hidden Power of Mental Agility

People differ in how well they can tolerate uncertainty, but we can work on changing our tolerance levels. Uncertainty can trick you into making decisions too quickly and encourage you to stick with the familiar. Becoming more comfortable with negative feelings and thoughts will help you deal with uncertainty. Exposing yourself to small doses of un

The exercises Alexa and I worked on are examples of what psychologists call “behavioral experiments”—these are activities that test our beliefs and expectations. They work by exposing people to small “doses” of uncertainty and by exploring the usefulness of worry, among other things.8 By targeting beliefs through actions, you can test out your most

Constant worry does not give us any more control over events; it simply saps us of energy and destroys our vitality.

Fear of uncertainty is the fuel that drives our worries

The German psychoanalyst Fritz Perls coined the term “the fertile void” to refer to this difficult space between the end of one thing and the beginning of another.4

Respect the process: growth occurs at its own pace, and you should not try to force it. An internal shift in identity is essential: you can only adapt to new circumstances by changing inside. Accept yourself for who you are and what the process of change entails. Lower your expectations about what you can and can’t do during this period.

and he spent several months really thinking about what it meant to give up professional sport, which had been his life since he was about ten years old. It was effectively a type of grieving process.

The process of transition involves first letting go of the old situation, then suffering the bewilderment and confusion of the in-between state, and finally emerging to start again in the new situation.

He no longer had a clear identity; while he had prepared well for the change, he had not prepared for the transition from much-feted athlete to ex-sports-star. He was essentially stuck between identities.