It’s time to talk about certainty again.
Certainty is a concept I am most fascinated by, it underpins so many aspects of our state.
👉 I’ve seen low certainty impact the mind as we age.
👉 I’ve felt certainty generate momentum.
👉 I’ve experienced low certainty slow my productivity and lower my wellbeing.
After witnessing the impacts of certainty…I began to expand the concept 👇
I link Certainty to change, resistance, neural pathways and even the energy requirement of an action.
Here’s a visual chart of that 👇
The higher our certainty; the less resistance, the less energy required and the more neural pathways we have to support the action.
Why is Certainty important?
The higher our certainty, the more momentum we generate.
We can think of high certainty as the path of least resistance.
When it comes to Productivity and Performance the path of least resistance is highly beneficial.
When it comes to Success, high certainty is detrimental.
Which brings me to the dark side of Certainty…
In High Performance Habits, Brendan Burchard describes certainty as “the enemy of growth and performance”.
When Brendon refers to certainty, he is addressing our desire for safety. Our desire to be sure of what will happen.
I agree, that is 100% correct.
Playing it safe won’t allow for growth
It won’t allow us to break through to new levels.
Let’s call this type of certainty “Future Certainty” “The knowing of what will happen.”
That’s not the type of certainty I am addressing.
The types of Certainty I focus on are:
✓ Action Certainty
✓ Practice Certainty
✓ Self Certainty
✓Overall Certainty
👉 Action Certainty: The knowing of what we are doing
👉 Practice Certainty: The knowing of what we can do
👉 Self Certainty: The knowing of our Self
👉 Overall Certainty: The net balance of the above three
At this moment I’m particularly interested in Action certainty.
“Action certainty can be thought of as combination of awareness and clarity which generate confidence”.
When we know the outcome we desire, the next step to take and the path between the two, we have a high degree of certainty.
Action certainty is a useful concept to hack our momentum.
Our momentum is heavily linked to our level of certainty.
If we feel certain of what we are doing, then we generate momentum.
If we feel uncertain, it slows down our momentum.