Why Making “I Don’t Know” Your Default Response Leads To Success

By

“I Don’t Know” as a mantra for success flips the script on traditional thinking. Admitting uncertainty isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a tool for making better decisions. It encourages humility, invites diverse perspectives, and keeps you open to new opportunities.

The following quotes inspire you to think about how your uncertainty and anxiety can be key positives for navigating complex decisions—and hopefully finding success or a solution to whatever problem is troubling you right now.


“When we are not sure, we are alive.”

— Graham Greene


“Uncertainty is the fertile ground of your life. It is the grey area in which anything is possible. The wisest person in the room is the one who never believes they are the smartest – genuinely intelligent people live in uncertainty, they know that there is always more to learn, see and discover.”

— Brianna Wiest


“No! Don’t think outside the box! Once you say that, you’ve established that there is a box.”

— Walt Disney


There are many things of which we are completely unaware—in fact, there are things of which we are so unaware, we don’t even know we are unaware of them.”

— Donald Rumsfeld


“Nothing conclusive has yet taken place in the world, the ultimate word of the world and about the world has not yet been spoken, the world is open and free, everything is still in the future, and will always be in the future.”

— M.M. Bakhtin


“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.”

Gilda Radner


“There is a crack in every thing, that’s how the light gets in.”

— Leonard Cohen


“Everything you’ve learned in school as “obvious” becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There’s not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines.”

— Richard Buckminster Fuller


“In a world of increasing uncertainty, expect…

— Gino Norris


“When there is a solution, it is no longer a problem. When there is an answer, it is no longer a real question. For at that point, the problem is part of the solution and the answer is part of the question. And then nothing remains but solutions without problems and answers without questions.”

— Jean Baudrillard


“There were too many questions. This would always happen. The further you go, the more there are. And every answer is a threat, a new abyss that only sleep can close.”

— Bret Easton Ellis


See reality is fluid, always evolving — the sooner you realize and adapt to this, the sooner the floodgates of success will open.