We like certainty, we crave it, we seek it out, and we cling to it when we do find it.
Certainty is good… right?
It’s good to be certain about things… your strategy… your staff members… your marketing… your suppliers… your insurance policy… your ISP… hell, I’d like to be certain about this week’s lotto numbers.
But there’s a downside to certainty.
When we are certain about something we aren’t open to other opportunities. There’s an opportunity cost. So as our certainty goes up our opportunities go down. After all why look for opportunities when we are already certain about what we are doing? If we are certain we have the best strategy why look for others… if we are certain we have the best staff why see who else is out there… if we are certain about our marketing why try something different…
When we are certain we miss out on countless opportunities because we simply stop paying attention to them.
Having doubt creates internal tension, it makes us uneasy, it produces anxiety and stress. But being certain is reassuring… it resolves that internal tension.
However, certainty is almost always illusory. We convince ourselves we are certain to quiet the voices in our head… to allow ourselves to move on to the next issue… to put out the next fire.
British philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell said, ‘The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice’…
…I have to agree.
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