Dr Vusi Shongwe
As George Savile and Thomas Kempis eloquently expressed, patience in the face of uncertainty is desirable, even laudable, but often difficult to achieve.
People frequently face difficult waiting periods when they anticipate uncertain news regarding their or their loved ones’ health, relationships, professional prospects, and academic outcomes.
Such experiences are sufficiently significant and ubiquitous as to inspire the familiar expression, ‘‘the waiting is the hardest part,’, yet the strategies people use to navigate painful uncertainty have received little empirical attention.
How do people manage their anxiety as they await uncertain news or certain news for that matter?
Are there any strategies people can use to be more patient as they wait? Waiting is a ubiquitous and often stressful human experience, particularly when one must wait for uncertain news.
A great deal of importance is wrongly or rightly placed upon matriculation results. However, the state of trepidation that is engendered by the mental anguish of waiting is yet to be comprehensively given attention to averting suicides among the youths in the event of receiving bad news regarding their matric results.
There is an urgent need to try to humanise the experience the experience because it is emotional and stressful for the students and families. The counselling that is given to a person when they are waiting for HIV/Aids test results must also be urgently considered by the Department of Education.
The counselling that is given to a person to undergo a heart-bypass operation is almost similar in terms of mentally preparing the parents and matric pupils for any eventuality, especially if the pupil themselves knows that they might have underperformed when they wrote the examination.
Counselling would also benefit parents because they too are going through the same mental anguish, especially if they consider the sacrifices, they may have made during the matric year to give their children all the required support.
For some parents, their matric pupils carry their hopes of unshackling them from the shackles of poverty. One can therefore understand the devastation in the event of their children not doing well.
I would like, therefore, to appeal to the top echelon of the Department of Education to urgently assemble a team of psychologists that must, in the next three days, be hosted by all radio stations and television to mentally prepare parents and pupils for the announcement of the matric results on Friday.
The primary goal of such interventions will be to provide strategies that can minimise anxiety and disruption during waiting periods, and minimise harm and maximise benefit once the uncertainty is resolved. Indeed, to the matriculants who will receive bad news, messages of hopefulness need to be communicated to them that they are not the first and the last to experience setbacks. Tough as it is, they must not allow their energies to be sapped by setbacks.
The experience of waiting for uncertain news
Undoubtedly, nearly everyone can recall a time when they anxiously awaited some important news. In academic life, for example, the experience of waiting is nearly constant: academics must await decisions about manuscripts, grant proposals, tenure and promotion, and job offers.
Thus, at the level of experience, the nature of waiting is probably all too familiar. In contrast, almost no empirical research has targeted the experience to determine the affective and cognitive qualities of waiting, the nature, and consequences of strategies for coping with waiting periods, or the situational and individual moderators that might impinge upon the waiting experience.
One is talking about waiting periods during which people can do little or nothing to alter their inevitable outcomes, as is the case following a diagnostic medical procedure, job interview, exam, performance evaluation and the like.
This mainly applies to situations in which the news could be good or bad, not simply neutral. Of course, there are situations in which the news affords opportunity only for gain (for example, winning an award or not), only for loss (for example, being diagnosed with an illness or not), and both (for example, receiving a grade on an exam).
One is clearly not oblivious that all uncertainty is not created equal, and psychological reactions to stressful uncertainty depend, as pointed out by several scholars cited by Kate Sweeny in her brilliantly pertinent article “Waiting Well: Tips for Navigating Painful Uncertainty”, on the importance, controllability, predictability, and chronicity of the circumstances surrounding uncertainty. Kate Sweeny’s research encompasses interests in social and health psychology, with a focus on threat management: how people give news of, prepare for, and respond to negative life events. Her research programme incorporates the study of risk judgements, coping, decision-making, emotions, social cognition, health, and communication.
Sweeney says people would benefit most from strategies to cope with waiting periods when the waiting is most difficult.
However, anecdotal experience suggests that uncertainty that might seem insignificant to others can be highly anxiety-provoking to the person experiencing the uncertainty, and as such the tips provided in this paper can aid in waiting well under a variety of circumstances.
In fact, Sweeny posits, the experience of waiting can lead to anxiety and distraction from other aspects of life, and the way in which people wait has downstream consequences after the news is revealed.
As pointed out by Sweeney, numerous theorists and researchers have established a link between uncertainty and anxiety based on self-report and physiological measures. Not surprisingly, people are motivated to eliminate this anxiety by reducing uncertainty if possible.
Sweeney says actions taken (and opportunities missed) during a waiting period can have objective consequences, particularly following bad news.
For example, an employee awaiting news about lay-offs can make pre-emptive preparations for the possibility of unemployment by delaying large purchases, reducing spending and investigating other job opportunities, and to the extent the employee engages in such behaviour during the waiting period, the financial consequences of a lay-off will be minimised.
Of course, such preparations could waste time and resources if the feared outcome (in this case, being laid-off) does not occur. Similarly, waiting strategies can increase or decrease the emotional impact of bad news. For example, people who manage their expectations appropriately or look in advance for the silver lining in all outcomes may be better prepared to cope with bad news.
The phenomenon of bracing for bad news
The research most relevant to the experience of waiting examines the phenomenon of bracing for bad news. In broad terms, the research, as pointed out by Sweeney, finds that people shift away from optimism and lower their expectations for their outcomes as feedback draws near.
Several factors contribute to this downward shift in expectations, but one reason people become more pessimistic at the moment of truth is to protect themselves from disappointment in the face of bad news. Research on bracing suggests that one way people manage uncertainty is by calibrating their expectations to minimise the pain of negative feedback.
However, it seems likely that awaiting a possible emotional and psychological blow entails more than simply setting up a desirable contrast between expectations and outcomes. People not only consider their emotional reactions to the news when it comes; they must also find ways to tolerate the anxiety that inevitably accompanies uncertainty.
Thus, and unfortunately, the literature on bracing provides a starting point but does not offer a complete picture of the strategies people use to endure difficult waiting periods.
However, a theoretical paper, by K Sweeny and AG Cavanaugh, “Waiting is the hardest part: A model of uncertainty navigation in the context of health”, presents a model of uncertainty navigation that applies related but disconnected literatures to the issue of waiting in an attempt to understand how people typically manage the waiting experience and what the consequences of the strategies might be.
Tips for Waiting Well
1: Distract yourself
Sweeney says the most intuitive way to endure a difficult waiting period is to not think about it. In fact, coping researchers have concluded that distraction is an appropriate coping strategy when a situation is uncontrollable and thus does not present opportunities for more active responses, as is the case when people await uncertain news.
In many ways, distraction is like denial, and as such, distraction might seem, at first glance, to be an undesirable strategy for navigating uncertainty. Numerous researchers and physicians have concluded that short-term denial is a typical and even beneficial response to difficult life events Of course, it would be disingenuous not to acknowledge that not all distraction techniques are equally effective.
Aside from the obvious suggestion to avoid self-destructive distractions such as binge-drinking and drug use, it might also be ineffective to bounce from one distraction to another without fully investing in any activity. Instead, it is best to find a particularly enjoyable and absorbing activity to distract from thoughts of uncertainty during difficult waiting periods. In addition, a growing body of evidence supports the effectiveness of mindfulness meditation for reducing rumination.
2: Manage your expectations
Distraction may be an effective strategy for waiting well, but often it is difficult or even impossible to avoid reminders of the uncertainty. In these cases, people must instead attempt to manage their thoughts about the situation to best mitigate anxiety during the waiting period and to minimise negative consequences upon learning the uncertain news.
One key strategy to this end is expectation management, which can take two forms during the course of a waiting period: bracing for bad news and maintaining hope or optimism. Although, argue Bruininks and Sweeney, the two forms of expectation management may seem in conflict, in fact pessimism about the likelihood of a good outcome and hope for that good outcome can coexist.
Furthermore, optimism and pessimism typically are fluid over the course of a waiting period, such that people become less optimistic over time in a strategic effort to maximise the benefits of optimism while also bracing for the worst at the moment of truth.
Turning first to bracing for bad news, as pointed out earlier, people often manage their anxiety about upcoming feedback by lowering their expectations as feedback draws near.
Alternatively, people can manage their expectations toward hope or optimism. A hopeful outlook has numerous benefits, including increased protection and speedier recovery from illness and better psychological adjustment in the face of difficult circumstances.
3: Look for the silver lining in all outcomes
A key aspect of most difficult waiting periods is fear of a bad outcome, such as a dire diagnosis, a failing grade or a poor performance evaluation.
To mitigate this painful aspect of waiting, Sweeney is of the view that people can engage in reappraisal by looking for the benefits in undesirable outcomes and reducing the importance or value of desirable outcomes.
Research on benefit-finding following loss or trauma finds that people can re-evaluate such experiences as opportunities for growth and personal improvement. Doing so reduces distress and depression and boosts well-being and psychological adjustment.
4: Keep things in perspective
Another option for reducing anxiety in anticipation of uncertain news is to reappraise the implications of the news. That is, people can reduce the potential sting of a bad outcome by calling into question the validity of the news as a gauge of their self-worth or aptitude, or by casting doubt on the reliability of the news source.
In a comparable way, people can reduce their anxiety over the potential impact of bad news by concocting reasons to doubt the feedback or its implications even before they receive it. However, Sweeney argues that the strategy could be problematic if it undermines the enjoyment of good news or, worse yet, undermines the motivation to respond appropriately to bad news, but in the face of paralysing anxiety over uncertainty, it nonetheless might be an effective way to make the waiting bearable.
5: Plan ahead
A final tip for waiting well is to plan ahead for the potential objective and psychological consequences of bad news. The strategy can reduce the detrimental impact of a bad outcome if one occurs, but it can also provide comfort during a waiting period. Regarding preparation for objective consequences, people might act during a waiting period to mitigate financial, professional and interpersonal costs or costs of time and effort that could result from bad news.
The "F" word.
One has been thinking about how the “F” affects people's sense of perception and the negative impact it has on so many people. The word is failure. One of the biggest obstacles to success for so many people is our fear of failure. Many people have allowed the fear of failure to get in the way of their success.
In his “My perspective on the “F”, Benjamin Olaakande is convinced that the difference between success and failure is really a matter of time. He offers his perspective on how to overcome failure to succeed.
Seek a crisis
Don't run from crisis, face it head on. Too much respect for problems often kills our faith in possibilities. There are too many folks out there who spend too much time assessing the possibility of failure that they never really get around to succeeding.
"Take risk without dreading failure"
The most successful people seem unacquainted with the concept of failure. They view failure as "false starts", "stumbles" or steps to greatness. Successful people take a different perspective to failure. They see failure as a strategy that just didn't work.
Olakannde says the challenge to view failure as a link between despair and hope, an avenue between the present and a promising future. And the next time you think of the "F" word, think of it as a minor detour on the road to success. I leave you with a statement that has become a driving force for me over the years. The real winners in life are the losers who kept on trying. Learn to persist, learn to redirect, and learn to make changes and you will succeed. Dean Alfange said it best: "I want to take the calculated risk, to dream, to build, to fail and to succeed."
I close with some well-known words of wisdom that have come from some of the most renowned losers of our time who eventually succeeded.
– Maintain a constant learning mode.
– Don't make the same mistakes repeatedly while hoping for different results.
– Stretch continuously. Improve on what you've done and build your skills.
– Don't waste your energy criticising and complaining. Be known as a problem solver, someone who fixes things.
– Remember, "smart people change before they have to".
– Operate with a sense of urgency that shows that you prefer action to perfection and breakthroughs to minor improvements.
– Remember, disagreement is not disrespect.
– Please do not forget that inspiration is the number one cause of greatness.
– Control your destiny or somebody else will.
– Don't allow the fear of failure to keep you from succeeding.
– There are no short cuts to any place worth going.
– Remember, you would rather fail trying than failing to try.
*Dr Vusi Shongwe is the Chief Director Heritage at the KZN Department of Sport, Arts and Culture. He writes in his personal capacity.
SUNDAY TRIBUNE