By Penny Power – Business Author & Human-Centred Speaker
Today is my first full day back at work in 2026. Is it yours too?
A fresh year. New opportunities ahead.
And yet, as I ease back in, I can feel that familiar knot of uncertainty in my belly. Not fear exactly… but that tightness we all carry when things ahead feel unknown, shifting, ungraspable.
I’m currently listening to Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change by Pema Chödrön, and it has moved me deeply. It is the word ‘beautifully’ that is so important. So I’ve decided to make this the subject of my first Ponderings for 2026.
Because the truth is: we all live with uncertainty.
The world has always been uncertain. But lately, it feels louder. The pace of change. The unpredictability of economies. The digital noise. The transformational impact of AI. The challenge of planning anything solidly when life keeps reshaping itself.
And yet…
What if uncertainty isn’t the problem?
What if the problem is our resistance to it?
What if the tension we feel isn’t because life is uncertain… but because we’re clinging so hard to certainty?
“Our discomfort,” Chödrön says, “lies with our effort to put ground under our feet.”
“Freedom,” she adds, “is letting go of the fundamental ambiguity of being human.”
Being human is ambiguous.
Life is unpredictable.
People change.
We change.
Feelings contradict each other.
Certainty is never guaranteed.
Control is never complete.
We spend so much time trying to secure things, our identity, our routines, our future. We tell ourselves:
“Once I’ve done this, then I’ll feel calm.”
But calm doesn’t live in the next achievement.
Calm lives in the moment we stop gripping so tightly.
Pema says “We are fundamentalists of our own lives, holding onto beliefs to cling to a position”
In the moment we realise: There is no perfect ground to stand on. Our beliefs are our ego attaching to fixed mindsets of how life should be.
As we enter this new year, I want to offer this gentle thought:
We don’t need to be less uncertain to feel more alive.
We need to be more courageous in uncertainty.
We need to stop attaching our nervous systems to things outside of our control.
We need to return to the present moment – with all its unknowns – and say:
“Even here, I can grow. Even here, I can contribute. Even here, I am safe.”
This year, I will continue noticing when I’m clinging.
When I’m strengthening my storyline.
When I’m giving power to fear, instead of giving presence to now.
And I will keep practising the quiet art of living beautifully with uncertainty.
My word this year is ‘COURAGE’ to have the courage to allow change and to live beautifully with it
How about you?
- What are you gripping too tightly?
- Where might you allow space, not for answers, but for presence?
- And what could become possible if you stopped fighting uncertainty… and started dancing with it?
- Share your word with me if you can, I love to read them
With love for your 2026
p.s. If you’d like to receive my Ponderings by email each week, please subscribe here. You can unsubscribe at any time.
