In the past few months I’ve caught myself negotiating uncertainty with if-then type of thinking. I am looking for a new place to live but because I don’t know when the current property I am living at is going to sell, I’m stuck in a waiting game. Sure the property has buyers and they have already accepted offers and such, but the actual contracts haven’t been signed. So far the process has been frustrating in its duration. Two earlier buyers pulled out because of funding issues (one person got laid off at work the other didn’t have the cash in the first place). Consequently I’ve felt in the middle of things, waiting for certainty before trying to obtain a new place. The whole thing has been drawing out for months.
If…Then
In other words I was thinking, if the property is sold, then I can look for a new property my self.
I am also wanting to fly out to America to marry my fiancee in the summer, but the housing situation is muddling things up. And I need someone to look after my cat, so organizing it without knowing the other variables is tricky. Again, I resorted to if-thens, like : if the house is sold and I’m in the new property and I have arranged for someone to take care of the cat, I will fly out. Then we can get married and we can live together permanently.
As the months have gone on I got a bit tired of the if-thens because it didn’t create the certainty I liked. Uncertainty was influencing my stress levels. I was worrying whether I would get a nice place my fiancee would like, whether the sale of the properties would go through, whether I could fly out in a timely manner because my fiancee is waiting for me and the list goes on. But it wasn’t so much the if-thens that took me out of balance, it was the pressure to do things in a certain period of time.
If your if-thens are failing, look at the underlying cause and relieve yourself of it.
Knowing that this was mostly a time-created point of stress, I resolved to focus on what I was certain about and what I do have control over. I asked myself the question: if time weren’t an issue, would you still be getting antsy about it? The answer was no for me, so I looked for ways to minimize the time-pressure. I affirmed that it doesn’t matter when I travel and marry my fiancee, the fact that I’m blessed to marry with someone as deeply lovable and radiant as she is, supercedes the ‘when’ and ‘where’. It is going to happen and I want us to enjoy it.
I know that the property I’m living in will sell eventually and there are more than enough properties across the UK, it is not like I would be homeless. I also know that I don’t have control over the timing of everything, there is no point in worrying about it.
There are different kinds of If – Then thinking
Not all if-thens are counterproductive, it is the quality and function of them that matters. One of the best tips I’ve learnt came from Dale Carnegie’s book on how to stop worrying and start living. It is called the stop-loss order for worry. If you have a certain topic that worries you and it is taking up much of your attention, define a concrete action you will take if things progress to defined point. You define a threshold that if triggered, you now know how you will decide to cope with it. By defining that up front you no longer worry about ‘what if’ and ‘what would I do then’.
So for example, if you are worrying whether someone is going to act on a request you made that is important to you, instead of spending time worrying or waiting, define a threshold and a trigger action. So you might decide to remind the person if you haven’t heard from then within7 days. It’s set-and-forget and consequently you no longer waste your psychic/mental resources in the mean time.
What kind of If-Thens are you employing in your life?
When I first started reading this post I thought “I don’t do that!” But when I got to to bottom I realized I do it more often than I think.
Now that you have me looking at this, waiting or putting something on hold for the perfect time is not very causative.
Life just goes whizzing by.
I made a short list of those things on my if-then and when-I’s that I can confront. Now it is a game of making it go right.
Thanks for the introspection.
After reading this post, I sat thinking for a couple minutes. Why did it seem familiar, when it is a new topic to me?
It’s because I’ve been in the same kind of waiting loop for almost a year! We have things we’ll do If-then. Meanwhile…not so much. I COULD do some things now that would go so much easier later. Maybe I should just start taking action and jog the Universe into producing what we’re waiting for.
Ha! If it doesn’t come in 7 days, then give the Universe another action step? It certainly couldn’t hurt!
@Sheila and @Karen thank you for your thoughtful comments! Glad it resonated