Miguel Rodrigues logoMiguel Rodrigues

| 3 min read

Anxiety, uncertainty, and lack of clarity

For a long time, I thought the problem was anxiety. My mind felt constantly busy, overwhelmed, and unable to switch off. Over time, I started noticing a pattern: most of the time, it wasn’t anxiety in the clinical sense. It was uncertainty. It was lack of clarity. It was being stuck in a future I couldn’t define. This is a reflection on that distinction and how, in many cases, anxiety can be a signal — not of weakness, but of lack of direction.

  • Anxiety
  • Mental health
  • Self-improvement
  • Reflection

For a while, I thought I had anxiety.

There were moments when my mind just wouldn’t stop. I was thinking about everything at once. Scenarios, possibilities, things that could go wrong. A constant sense of pressure, like there was always something unresolved.

At the time, the easiest explanation was: “this is anxiety.”

But over time, I started noticing something.

Those moments almost always showed up when there was something in my future that wasn’t clear.

A decision I hadn’t made.
A problem without a defined solution.
A goal without a plan.

And that’s when I started questioning it:
what if this isn’t anxiety… at least not in the way people usually mean it?

The way I see anxiety today is simple:

anxiety is, often, an obsession with the unknown.

It’s being stuck in a future that doesn’t exist yet, trying to predict everything that could go wrong, without having any structure to deal with it.

It’s the mind trying to solve a problem… that hasn’t even been properly defined.

The problem isn’t thinking about the future.

The problem is thinking about the future without clarity.

Without knowing:

  • what you actually want
  • what the next steps are
  • what is (and isn’t) under your control

When that happens, the brain goes into a loop.

“What if this happens?”
“What if I fail?”
“What if it doesn’t work?”

But there’s never an answer, because there’s no structure.

Only uncertainty.

What I started doing was much simpler than it sounds.

Instead of trying to “get rid of anxiety,” I started trying to understand what it was showing me.

And most of the time, it was this:

there’s something here that isn’t clear.

So the process became:

  1. Stop
  2. Define the goal
  3. Break down the steps to get there
  4. Create a plan (even if it’s imperfect)

Suddenly, what used to be a vague block of worry turns into a sequence of actions.

And that changes everything.

Because when there’s a plan:

  • the unknown shrinks
  • the brain stops trying to control everything at once
  • your attention returns to the present

You’re no longer lost in an abstract future.

You’re focused on the next step.

This doesn’t mean anxiety disappears completely.

But it stops being paralyzing.

It becomes a signal.

An indicator that something hasn’t been organized yet.

Of course, this doesn’t apply to every case.

There are clinical forms of anxiety, such as, generalized anxiety disorder, panic attacks, social anxiety, and specific phobias.

These conditions can be associated with: neurological and physiological patterns, an overactive nervous system, genetic predisposition, or past experiences.

And in those cases, “making a plan” isn’t enough on its own.

But in my experience, and in most everyday situations, anxiety doesn’t come from something deep or mysterious.

It comes from lack of clarity.

It comes from constantly thinking about a future that has no shape.

Now, when I feel that kind of anxiety, I don’t try to ignore it.

I also don’t try to just “relax.”

I ask a simple question:

what exactly is unclear here?

And I start from there.

Most of the time, that’s enough to turn anxiety… into direction.