Navigating uncertainty
When you cannot know what comes next, it helps to know where you stand.
A diagnosis. A major decision. A change you did not choose. A conversation you cannot avoid. Uncertainty makes it harder to think clearly because so many things are happening at once: facts are incomplete, feelings conflict, priorities shift, and the questions themselves may not yet be clear. Finding language for what you know, what you fear, what matters, and what you still need to understand can help you find your footing.
Return to Lingwell overviewSee the researchSome of the hardest moments in life arrive before we have words for them.
You may know something has changed without knowing what it means yet. You may have a decision to make when none of the choices feels right. You may need to speak with a doctor, family member, employer, or someone you love before you have figured out what you want to say.
Uncertainty can turn all of that into one large, unsettled feeling.
What do I actually know?
What am I assuming?
What am I afraid of?
What matters most here?
What can I influence?
What do I need to ask?
Once those pieces become visible, it becomes easier to work with them.
You may still not know what will happen. But you can become much clearer about how you want to meet it.
What clearer language can make possible
Four ways it shows up.
Each card shows the research it draws on. Select a number to jump to the full reference.
Prepare for Important Conversations
The conversations that matter most rarely arrive after we have everything figured out. Lingwell helps you work through one before you enter it: what needs to be said, what you are afraid you will forget, what you want the other person to understand, what you need answered. Finding those words beforehand makes it easier to bring more of yourself, and more of what matters, into the room.
Research25Advocate for Yourself More Effectively
Self-advocacy begins before anyone speaks up, with recognizing: this does not feel right, I need more information, this matters to me. That is hard when an experience is confusing or unfamiliar. Lingwell helps people develop enough clarity to describe what they are experiencing, name their concerns, and put questions into words. You do not have to become confrontational. Sometimes advocacy is simply saying clearly what you are experiencing and what you need.
Research21Make Difficult Decisions
Some decisions are hard because the information is complicated. Others are hard because things you value pull in different directions. A treatment choice may involve risk, independence, family, and quality of life; a career choice, security, purpose, and responsibility to others. Lingwell helps separate those pieces, not to decide for you, but to show what the decision is actually asking of you.
Research45Navigate Care, Recovery, and Change
Change rarely happens in a straight line. Recovery has good days and discouraging ones, caregiving roles shift, and a diagnosis raises new questions after the first have been answered. Lingwell gives people a way to keep making sense of an experience while it is changing, which helps them stay active participants in care, recovery, and major transitions rather than simply reacting to whatever comes next.
Research23What research helps explain
Why finding language can help people find their footing.
Research on navigating difficulty looks at how people make sense of unclear situations, how they act on their own behalf, how they take part in their own care, and how they find meaning in hard events. Together, these areas help explain why language matters when the path is not clear.
Unclear situations become more manageable when we can frame what is happeningSensemaking
Karl Weick’s work on sensemaking examines how people respond when situations are ambiguous, unfamiliar, or changing. People do not wait until they possess a complete explanation before they act. They notice what seems important, give those things names, connect them into an account of what may be happening, and use that account to decide what to do next. The account can change as new information arrives.
That is important in uncertainty. The goal does not have to be perfect certainty. It can be enough to develop an understanding that is clear enough to move with.
Putting a situation into words (what is known, what is uncertain, what has changed, what needs attention) helps turn an undefined problem into something a person can begin to navigate.
Source: Weick, 1995 5
Agency grows when people can see where action is still possibleHuman agency
Albert Bandura describes human agency as our capacity to form intentions, anticipate possibilities, regulate our actions, and influence circumstances rather than only responding to them.
Uncertainty can obscure that capacity. When a situation feels overwhelming, things a person can control, things they can influence, and things outside their control can become tangled together. Language helps draw those distinctions.
I cannot control the diagnosis. I can prepare questions.
I cannot know exactly how someone will respond. I can decide what I need to say.
I cannot resolve everything today. I can choose the next step.
Recognizing those distinctions is part of regaining agency.
Source: Bandura, 2006 1
People participate more actively in care when they have knowledge, skills, and confidencePatient activation
Judith Hibbard and Jessica Greene reviewed research on patient activation: the knowledge, skills, confidence, and willingness people bring to managing their health and participating in care. More activated patients tend to participate more actively and have better experiences of care.
Language is part of what makes that participation possible. Being able to describe what you are experiencing, explain what has changed, ask a question, express a preference, or say that you do not understand gives clinicians something more precise to respond to.
Lingwell can help people arrive at those conversations with more of that language already available.
Source: Hibbard & Greene, 2013 2
People try to make difficult events fit into what they believe about their livesMeaning-making
Crystal Park’s work on meaning-making examines what happens when an experience disrupts assumptions about ourselves, other people, or the way life is supposed to work. People naturally try to reconcile what happened with those larger beliefs. That process is especially visible after loss, illness, trauma, or major change.
Questions emerge: Why did this affect me so much? What has changed about the way I see myself? What do I believe now? What am I supposed to do with what happened? Those questions are not solved by finding a cheerful interpretation.
Meaning-making is the work of developing an account that allows the experience to belong somewhere within a person’s larger understanding of their life. Language is central to that work.
Source: Park, 2010 3
Autonomy, competence, and connection matter when people are under pressureSelf-determination
Richard Ryan and Edward Deci’s self-determination theory describes three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Uncertain situations can put all three under pressure. People may feel that decisions are being made around them. They may feel unprepared to understand what is happening. They may struggle to explain the experience to people close to them.
Finding language does not resolve all of those pressures, but it can help restore participation. Understanding the situation more clearly can strengthen competence. Recognizing one’s preferences and choices supports autonomy. Being able to share an experience with another person can support connection.
Sometimes finding your footing begins with being able to say where you are.
Source: Ryan & Deci, 2017 4
How Lingwell helps
Somewhere to think before you have to know.
You can begin Lingwell without having the answer. You can begin with the diagnosis you do not understand, the conversation you keep avoiding, the choice you cannot make, or simply the feeling that something has changed and you do not yet know what to call it.
Lingwell helps you slow the experience down through guided conversation. As you respond, you can begin to distinguish what you know from what you fear, what matters from what is noise, and what can be acted on from what must remain uncertain for now.
What emerges belongs to you. Keep it private. Return to it as the situation changes. Or carry clearer language into an appointment, conversation, or decision. Uncertainty does not always need to disappear before you can move. Sometimes you need enough clarity to take the next step.
Research & references
Selected references
Sources that inform this page. Entries link to a search for the full text.
- Bandura, A. (2006). Toward a psychology of human agency. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1(2), 164–180. Find it↑ back
- Hibbard, J. H., & Greene, J. (2013). What the evidence shows about patient activation: Better health outcomes and care experiences; fewer data on costs. Health Affairs, 32(2), 207–214. Find it↑ back
- Park, C. L. (2010). Making sense of the meaning literature: An integrative review of meaning making and its effects on adjustment to stressful life events. Psychological Bulletin, 136(2), 257–301. Find it↑ back
- Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness. Guilford Press. ↑ back
- Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in Organizations. Sage Publications. ↑ back