Uncertainty

Uncertainty is a great crippler to anyone in a violent conflict. It is a part of training and practice to address all the uncertainties one will encounter so as to resolve and accept them and how you will act regardless of said uncertainties. 

You may encounter the uncertainty of the conflict or violence your dealing with, about what will happen in the future, and about what resources, tactics and strategies you have, and what you will do it it is not enough. Even when we fully understand all the uncertainties we will encounter in self defense or as professionals who go into harms way as part of what they do we may be uncertain about which option we choose. 

The time to address these is in training and practice. It is the ongoing, diligent and pervasive reality based training and practice along with cumulative real life experiences that will allow us to address and answer all uncertainties before we are in the fight or just about any problem in life. The active seeking to know, understand and apply the answers, that is a key. 

My recent discovery is that there are five fundamental sources of uncertainty, one is you are missing information, two is unreliable information, three is conflicting information, four is noisy information and five is confusing information. 

Missing Information: information you don't have, information you cannot locate buried in information overload, or cannot access the information you need.

Unreliable Information: You suspect the information is erroneous, or outdated, or you receive information from several sources. 

Conflicting Information: The trusted information you have is inconsistent with other information you have and trust. 

Noisy Information: when bombarded with information we can't recognize it with confidence to use it.

Confusing Information: We have all we need yet we cannot interpret it, i.e. so complex we can't form adequate cues and patterns to use it properly. The data could also provide more that one reasonable interpretation. 

The point here is to address this in training and practice. Acknowledge it and then train and practice so that it will be overcome in a crunch allowing intuitive subconscious decisions to act appropriately to any situation. 

Bibliography:

Klein, Gary. "The Power of Intuition: How to Use Your Gut Feelings to Make Better Decisions at Work." Doubleday. New York. 2003.