What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do

Adventure is a State of Mind

Many people are afraid to travel due to a fear of not knowing what to do if something difficult or unexpected happens.

What they don’t stop to consider, however, is whether you are on a travel adventure or staying at home, there are times when we all are faced with situations we don’t immediately know how to handle.

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to problems. (I promise I would share if there was!!) There are, however, some general guidelines that can help you weather such situations when they do occur.

When Unexpected Things Happen

Unexpected things happen. All the time. When traveling, it is not uncommon to face rescheduled or canceled flights along with other travel complications. You can try to plan and map out every hour of your trip, but sometimes things happen that are completely out of your control.

On a trip to London, I had carefully researched and mapped out how to use the Tube (the metro system in London) to get from the airport to the bed and breakfast where we were staying. Nowhere in any of my research did it mention that the section of The Tube closest to our lodging would be closed for repairs on the day we arrived. We figured that out when we got to the station where we planned to transfer to the line we needed, and the gates were closed with a sign announcing the construction taking place.

I didn’t have a back up plan.

I didn’t know anything about the London bus system because I had only traveled by the Tube previously and understood it well enough that I didn’t think I needed a backup plan. So, what is a brave, wise traveler to do when they don’t know what to do?

Don’t Panic!

If you’re a Douglas Adams fan, you’ll recognize the reference to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Even if you’re not a Douglas Adams fan, the advice that appears on the cover of the guide for interplanetary travelers (with the same title as the novel) is great advice.

Panic, in any situation, does nothing but increase the stress hormones in our body and decrease our ability to think clearly. Unless you need to run away or fight off a bear, these physiological stress responses generally are not very helpful.

Instead of panicking, take a deep breath and then consider how to solve the problem you are facing.

Slow Down

Did you know the Navy SEALs have a mantra? – “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.” It’s a reminder that slowing down to take deliberate action avoids mistakes and therefore is more efficient in high-stress situations.

Most of us (thankfully!) will not face situations as difficult as a Navy SEAL faces in their career, but it almost always helps to slow down. Slowing down your response to a stressful situation gives you time to use the logical side of your brain to evaluate the situation as well as your resources.

When we are faced with uncertainty, our focus can widen to allow us to take in more information. In an interview with Kate Bowler on the podcast, Everything Happens, the author, Maggie Jackson, describes how individuals can have “curious eyes” when they are facing uncertainty.

So long as we are not overwhelmed by the stress of the situation we are facing, the stress of dealing with unexpected changes and uncertainty is actually good stress. It is an opportunity to grow and thrive. Slowing down allows us to take in new information, practice problem-solving, make new connections with the information we have, and become braver and wiser than we were before we found ourselves in the position of (initially) not knowing what to do.

When traveling in Italy with my cousin, Jill, we took what we thought was a train from Florence to Pisa. At a small station in the middle of nowhere, the train stopped and the conductor kicked Jill and I and two other American passengers off of the train. We didn’t know why. The conductor didn’t speak English, and none of us spoke Italian. The station was so small that there was no one working there. In fact, there were only a couple of houses in the village, and not a person in sight!

We had no choice but to slow down. Other than starting to walk, there was nothing else we could do. (This was in 1995, so none of us had a cell phone.)

The four of us discussed our very limited options, speculated about what happened, laughed a great deal, and eventually decided there was nothing we could do but wait. Sure enough, after about an hour, another train pulled into the station and the conductor motioned for us to get on. We hoped that train would take us to Pisa… and it did.

I’m still not sure what happened, but in addition to having a good travel story, I’m now more careful about checking train schedules to make sure trains are going where I want them to go!

Focus on What You Can Control

Putting your time and energy into what you can actually control or change rather than wasting your efforts on things out of your control is a good rule for life, in general. How many times have you spent time worrying about something like the weather? For example, have you ever asked yourself or your travel companions, “What if our flight is delayed because of a thunderstorm?!”

I’m as guilty as anyone of worrying about things that aren’t under my control. The older I get, however, the more I’m able to catch myself and recognize when there’s nothing I can do to change a situation. For example, I’ve figured out I definitely can’t control the weather!

Part of what has helped me to let go of what I can’t control is having enough life experience to realize, most of the time, things work out. They often don’t work out the way I thought they would, but sometimes they actually work out better than they would have if I’d been able to choose what I wanted.

Sometimes uncertainty equals potential.

Once when traveling back from the Azores with our friends, Mike and Shelley, our connecting flight was canceled and we had to spend an extra 24 hours in Boston. We obviously wanted to get home, but the extra day gave us an opportunity to relax at the hotel (and recover from jetlag) and experience some delicious food from the “Little Italy” area of Boston.

Attitude

It helps to remember that we can’t always control circumstances, but we can choose how we respond to them. Even what we tell ourselves about the situation can make a difference. As the psychologist, Ellen Langer, says – “Events don’t cause stress. A negative view of an event causes stress.” Stress is mostly about the stories we tell ourselves when facing the unknown.

Dr. Langer suggests that one way to have a positive, mindful attitude when dealing with an unexpected event is to ask yourself whether it is a tragedy or an inconvenience. That creates a different perspective for a lot of things, doesn’t it? For example, I was in France when the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred. What happened to the victims was a tragedy. The changes to our plans and the uncertainty we faced at the time were merely inconveniences.

Live Life as an Experiment

It is impossible to know everything you need to know before you depart on your travel adventure. Actually, it’s impossible to know everything you need to know at almost every point in your life.

We can learn by reading and talking to others, but a great deal of what we learn in life is from observation and trial and error. Both of these require us to actually be immersed in a situation.

Sometimes you can figure out what’s going on and what you need to do by watching others. For example, there have been times when Greg and I were in a grocery store in a country where we didn’t speak or read the language, and watching how others used the machines to weigh and label fruits and vegetables was how we figured out what to do. (At least, I assume we figured it out and did it correctly since they let us leave the store with our purchases.)

There are many times in life, however, when observation is not going to give you enough information to clear up the uncertainty. Or maybe there’s no one to observe. In that case, you have to make your best guess and just try something. Trial and error is an approach that humans have used since we became humans.

If you’re facing a situation and you don’t know what to do, take your best guess and just try something. It could be approaching someone, even though you don’t speak the same language, in the hopes that hand gestures will be enough to figure out a solution to your problem.

If you can learn from the worst times of your life, you will then be ready to go into the best times of your life.

Anonymous

In the case of trying to get across London by bus, my travel companions and I found a bus stop and had a discussion about the schedule and which bus we thought might take us where we wanted to go. Then we waited for that bus to arrive and got on the bus, hoping it was the correct one, and asked the bus driver if he was going where we hoped. We were lucky and it was the right bus. But if it hadn’t been, I’m sure the bus driver would have given us information to help us choose the correct bus.

We learn from both our successes and our mistakes.

And, if we try something and our experiment doesn’t turn out the way we hoped? Well, “failures” often end up being the best stories!

What is something that you learned “the hard way” through trial and error? How can you manage your attitude when you’re faced with uncertainty during your travel adventures?