Embracing Uncertainty and Radical Curiosity with Leo Babauta

When uncertainty appears, turn toward it like a friend before you try to solve it

The answer from Jonny Miller’s conversation with Leo Babauta is direct: the doorway is not more control. It is radical curiosity toward the exact fear, groundlessness, or resistance you normally avoid.²

Leo’s work began with familiar habit-change terrain: quitting smoking, running, simplifying, debt, writing, productivity, and mindfulness.¹ But the deeper thread he names is not “optimize harder.” It is the willingness to go inward, notice the stories and impulses that drive behavior, and stay curious even when you do not like what you find.¹

Use this guide when you are:

• delaying a meaningful project because you might fail;
• trying to learn everything before taking the next step;
• clinging to a goal that no longer feels alive;
• optimizing routines, metrics, tools, or systems instead of serving the real intention;
• shutting down when fear, discomfort, or relational uncertainty appears.

✻1This is not anxiety treatment, trauma therapy, addiction treatment, or medical advice. If fear, panic, compulsive avoidance, depression, trauma symptoms, or substance patterns are severe, persistent, or destabilizing, work with a qualified professional. Treat these practices as gentle experiments in awareness and behavior, not promises of clinical outcomes.

Reclassify fear from “problem” to “object of curiosity”

Leo points out that one reason we turn away from fear is that we think we already know what it is: bad, dangerous, distasteful, something to escape.² That categorization ends inquiry. Once the mind says “I know this,” it stops looking.

Radical curiosity starts by changing the relationship:

Default reaction	Radical-curiosity move
“Fear is bad; get rid of it.”	“What is this fear made of right now?”
“I should not feel this.”	“Where is this in my body?”
“This means I cannot do it.”	“What is this protecting me from?”
“I need certainty first.”	“What would one honest step inside uncertainty look like?”
“I already know myself.”	“What if there is more here than my current story?”

Leo compares this to how you would respond to a friend. If a friend offered something uncomfortable and you turned away with disgust, the relationship would close. If you turned toward them with warmth and asked, “Tell me more,” more contact would become possible.²

A simple inquiry:

1. Name the activation: “Fear is here,” “groundlessness is here,” or “resistance is here.”
2. Drop the global story: do not decide yet what it means about you.
3. Find three body facts: temperature, pressure, movement, numbness, breath, posture.
4. Ask one friendly question: “What are you trying to help me not feel?”
5. Choose one action that keeps contact without overwhelming you.

The research bridge should stay modest. Carleton’s review argues that fear of the unknown may be a fundamental component across anxiety-related phenomena.³ That does not mean every fear response is pathological or that curiosity alone treats anxiety. It does support Leo’s practical emphasis: our relationship with uncertainty is often central to how we avoid, control, procrastinate, or shut down.

Train uncertainty in small reps before life demands big ones

Leo’s coaching work led him to a pattern: people often know the instructions for a habit, but they still stop, ghost, procrastinate, or fail to restart after missing a few days because deeper uncertainty about themselves has appeared.⁴

The practical implication is important: if uncertainty is the training ground, then the practice must include uncertainty on purpose. Not reckless exposure. Small, chosen reps.

Build an uncertainty training plan:

Training element	How to apply it
A why	Choose a practice connected to love, service, creativity, health, or contribution — not just self-improvement pressure.5
A container	Commit to another person, group, coach, or peer; Leo says training alone is advanced practice because it is easier to let yourself off the hook.5
A daily rep	Do one small action daily so your patterns become visible: avoidance, rebellion, control, distraction, self-doubt, or shutdown.5
A pattern log	After the rep, write: “When uncertainty appeared, my pattern was ___.”
A repair rule	If you miss, restart without drama. The restart is part of the training, not evidence that training failed.4

Good reps are boringly specific:

• send the draft before it is perfect;
• ask the “silly” question in the meeting;
• sit for two minutes without checking the answer;
• restart the habit after one missed day;
• make the sales call before more research;
• tell someone, “I do not know yet, but here is my best next step.”

Leo names the “magic moment” as the instant you want to run, complain, distract, control, or shut down — and instead stay curious a little longer.⁵ That is the rep.

Practice

Run the 6-minute “hold the pose” uncertainty rep

Use this when you notice the urge to escape a task, conversation, body sensation, blank page, or decision.

1. Choose the pose. Pick one small uncertain action: opening the document, writing the hard sentence, asking the question, staying present in a tense conversation, or sitting without the answer.
2. Set a timer for two minutes. You are not committing forever. You are practicing contact.
3. Notice the exit strategy. Look for checking, scrolling, explaining, optimizing, eating, blaming, researching, or mentally leaving.
4. Open the body by 5%. Soften the jaw, uncross the arms, feel your feet, lengthen the exhale, or look around the room.
5. Ask Leo’s core question. “What is it like to stay here and keep my heart open a little longer?”
6. Take one visible action. Type one sentence, ask one question, make one repair, send one message, or complete one tiny rep.
7. Debrief without self-attack. Write: “The pattern that appeared was ___. The next tiny rep is ___.”

The win is not fearlessness. The win is learning that you can remain in contact with uncertainty for a little longer than your old pattern expected.

Practice not-knowing before you fill every gap with information

Jonny and Leo explore a subtle trap: curiosity can become another control strategy. You notice what you do not know, then immediately buy the books, take the course, gather the tools, and overload yourself with inputs so you do not have to feel the raw state of not-knowing.⁶

Leo’s invitation is more radical: pause in the feeling of not-knowing itself.⁶

Try this before your next information binge:

1. Write the question plainly: “I do not know ___.”
2. Notice the body response: groundless, tight, blank, excited, ashamed, urgent, open.
3. Do not answer it for sixty seconds.
4. Ask: “Am I seeking information, or am I trying to eliminate the feeling of uncertainty?”
5. If information is genuinely needed, choose one source or one conversation — not an infinite search.
6. If the next step is already clear enough, act before consuming more.

Leo also points toward the vulnerability of saying “I don’t know” in front of others.⁷ That can be a powerful practice because the real exposure is not ignorance; it is letting the front drop. The sentence “I don’t know yet” often returns you to reality faster than a polished performance of certainty.

This is where body awareness becomes practical. Price and Hooven describe interoceptive awareness skills — noticing, accessing, and appraising internal body signals — as relevant to emotion regulation.⁸ Cautiously applied, that supports the NSM move here: before you explain the fear, measure the metric, or solve the uncertainty, listen for the signal your body is already giving.

Use goals as temporary directions, not contracts with reality

Leo is not simply “anti-goal.” His more useful point is that rigid goals can become stale maps created by a past self who did not yet know what today’s reality would reveal.⁹

He describes planning the year, month, week, and day — then watching disruptions, opportunities, conversations, learning, and new paths make the original plan less intelligent than it once seemed.⁹ The problem is not having a target. The problem is treating the target as more sacred than the live feedback of reality.

A goal can be useful when it functions as:

• a direction to begin walking;
• a way to organize attention;
• a constraint that reveals learning;
• a temporary experiment;
• a signal of what you care about.

A goal becomes brittle when it functions as:

• proof of worth;
• a way to avoid uncertainty;
• permission to ignore new information;
• a reason to attack yourself;
• a contract that reality must obey.

Try Leo’s one-month experiment in a nervous-system-compatible way:⁹

1. Pick one domain where goals have become tight: work, health, learning, money, creativity, relationships.
2. Replace the fixed outcome with a daily intention: “Today I practice ___ in service of ___.”
3. Check in each morning: “What does today’s reality make possible?”
4. Check in each evening: “What did I learn that my old plan did not know?”
5. At the end of the month, decide which goals deserve to return — and which were only control strategies.

Leo says he notices grasping through agitation, tension, frustration, fixation, body cues, and the effects his behavior has on himself and others.¹⁰ Especially useful warning signs: beating yourself up, lashing out, judging others, or harming the work you care about.¹⁰

Replace optimization with devotion to what matters

Leo’s critique of life optimization is not a critique of caring about health, productivity, relationships, or craft. It is a critique of letting the management system become the center of gravity.¹¹

Optimization often starts innocently:

• track the metric;
• improve the routine;
• find the better app;
• refine the plan;
• increase the output.

But Leo noticed that the tools, stats, reporting, growth tactics, and overhead can displace the original intention. The heart moves from the people, work, or love that mattered to the metrics and systems around them.¹¹

Use this diagnostic:

If you are optimizing...	Ask...
your productivity	What is this productivity in service of?
your health	Is this care for aliveness, or fixation on a perfect body?
your learning	Am I following curiosity, or trying to abolish not-knowing?
your business	Am I serving real people, or worshiping the dashboard?
your relationships	Am I present, or performing an optimized version of presence?

Leo’s alternative word is devotion: caring deeply about something that cannot be fully optimized — love for yourself, others, the work, the world, and the miracle of being alive.¹¹

The final question he leaves is a practical one for NSM readers: What is it like to keep your heart open for a little longer and not shut down?¹²

Ask it at the exact point where your old pattern takes over.

Key takeaways

• Fear becomes more workable when you stop treating it as a known enemy and start meeting it with friendly curiosity.
• Uncertainty training requires small, repeated reps where your avoidance, control, distraction, or shutdown patterns become visible.
• “Hold the pose” means staying in contact for a little longer when you want to run — not forcing yourself beyond capacity.
• Not-knowing is a state to practice, not just a gap to fill with information.
• Goals are useful as temporary directions; they become costly when they override live feedback.
• Optimization is a tool. Devotion to what matters is the deeper orientation.
• The question is not “How do I become fearless?” It is “Can I keep my heart open a little longer?”

Free assessment

Take the free nervous system assessment.

If uncertainty, over-control, perfectionism, procrastination, or shutdown patterns keep pulling you away from what matters, the assessment can help you map your current nervous-system patterns and choose a steadier next step.

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Continue exploring

• Read Mindfulness and Procrastination: Diagnose the Real Block for a complementary framework on turning avoidance into clear next action.
• Read Digital Distraction: Reclaim Attention Without Quitting Technology for practical ways to notice when uncertainty turns into checking and distraction.
• Read The Art and Science of Interoception for a deeper look at sensing internal body signals before they drive behavior.
• Read Reset Your Nervous System for simple regulation practices to use before uncertainty training becomes too much.

References

1. Leo Babauta, Embracing Uncertainty & Radical Curiosity with Leo Babauta, 10:44–17:08. ↩
2. Leo Babauta and Jonny Miller, Embracing Uncertainty & Radical Curiosity with Leo Babauta, 17:08–22:13. ↩
3. Carleton reviews and synthesizes evidence for fear of the unknown as a potentially fundamental component of anxiety-related experience. See R. Nicholas Carleton, “Fear of the unknown: One fear to rule them all?” Journal of Anxiety Disorders 41 (2016): 5–21, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2016.03.011. ↩
4. Leo Babauta, Embracing Uncertainty & Radical Curiosity with Leo Babauta, 23:31–29:28. ↩
5. Leo Babauta, Embracing Uncertainty & Radical Curiosity with Leo Babauta, 30:33–36:59. ↩
6. Leo Babauta, Embracing Uncertainty & Radical Curiosity with Leo Babauta, 38:31–41:48. ↩
7. Leo Babauta, Embracing Uncertainty & Radical Curiosity with Leo Babauta, 43:07–45:14. ↩
8. Price and Hooven describe interoceptive awareness skills — identifying, accessing, and appraising internal body signals — as relevant to emotion regulation. See Cynthia J. Price and Carole Hooven, “Interoceptive Awareness Skills for Emotion Regulation,” Frontiers in Psychology 9 (2018), https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00798. ↩
9. Leo Babauta, Embracing Uncertainty & Radical Curiosity with Leo Babauta, 48:46–54:19. ↩
10. Leo Babauta, Embracing Uncertainty & Radical Curiosity with Leo Babauta, 55:58–1:00:18. ↩
11. Leo Babauta, Embracing Uncertainty & Radical Curiosity with Leo Babauta, 1:01:07–1:06:42. ↩
12. Leo Babauta, Embracing Uncertainty & Radical Curiosity with Leo Babauta, 1:13:06–1:15:14. ↩