If there’s one thing that experience has taught me working in health, fitness, and rehab, it’s this: certainty sells, but uncertainty transforms.
In a world overflowing with five-step fixes and viral protocols promising guaranteed results, it’s easy to forget that every body is different—and that’s not just a slogan. It’s a biological, psychological, and contextual reality. The deeper you go into any healing or performance journey, the more you begin to see that there is rarely one “best” way to move, eat, lift, stretch, or recover. Instead, there’s a web of possible paths—some clear, some winding, and all shaped by individual needs and ever-shifting circumstances.
Still, our culture tends to reward confidence that looks like certainty. We’re drawn to experts who speak in absolutes: “Never round your back when you deadlift.” “This is the only anti-inflammatory diet that works.” “Running is bad for your knees.” The health and fitness industry is saturated with black-and-white thinking because it gives people the comfort of clarity in a very messy and personal process.
But real confidence—the kind that builds trust, facilitates change, and sustains progress—doesn’t come from clinging to dogma. It comes from acknowledging uncertainty, exploring it, and being willing to stay curious even when we don’t have all the answers.
The Allure of the “Best Way”
When someone is in pain, feeling weak, or trying to make a lasting change, they’re vulnerable. They crave guidance, and understandably so. A definitive answer feels like a lifeline: “Just do this, and you’ll be fine.”
This is why the idea of “best practices” or “optimal” strategies in injury recovery, nutrition, and training is so appealing. It promises relief from complexity.
But what’s optimal on paper may not be practical—or even possible—for the person in front of you. A rigid protocol doesn’t know that someone sleeps four hours a night because they’re caring for an aging parent. It doesn’t know that a client’s back pain is tied more to their stress levels than to their hip mobility. It doesn’t ask whether someone wants to squat or deadlift or run 5Ks—it just assumes they should.
So, when we lead with certainty—when we say “this is the best way”—we often miss the opportunity to actually help someone. Because helping someone starts with understanding them, not prescribing at them.
Uncertainty Is Not the Enemy
Uncertainty gets a bad rap. It’s often interpreted as ignorance or weakness. But in the context of health and fitness, uncertainty is simply an acknowledgment of reality.
It’s a recognition that:
The same treatment won’t yield the same result in two different people.
Someone’s nervous system, environment, and history shape their response to movement and stress more than any single muscle imbalance.
The body isn’t a machine; it’s a complex, adaptive system.
In rehab settings, this means accepting that a diagnosis doesn’t always predict function or pain. MRIs may show disc degeneration in people with no symptoms, and conversely, people with “clean” imaging may still be in debilitating pain. Knowing this doesn’t make us less skilled—it makes us more attuned to what’s really going on.
In training, it means we stop obsessing over perfect form and start paying attention to how someone feels when they move. We shift from “fixing” people to exploring with them. From enforcing the “right” way to deadlift to finding the way their body feels strong and safe pulling weight off the ground.
In nutrition, it means recognizing that the perfect macro ratio or anti-inflammatory supplement stack might matter far less than whether someone enjoys their meals, eats consistently, and isn’t under chronic stress about their food choices.
Uncertainty is not the absence of knowledge. It’s the presence of humility.
The Confidence to Say “I Don’t Know… Yet”
There’s a quiet kind of strength in saying, “Let’s figure this out together.”
It invites collaboration. It allows for experimentation. And it acknowledges that healing and growth are not linear processes with step-by-step guides. They’re deeply human experiences, filled with trial, error, learning, and change.
As professionals, our role shifts from being the answer-giver to being a curious, informed guide. We become co-investigators with the people we serve—paying attention, asking better questions, and adapting as we go.
Confidence in uncertainty also protects us from burnout. When we think we’re supposed to have all the answers, we carry an impossible burden. But when we embrace not-knowing as part of the process, we stay open, creative, and better able to support others through their complexities.
Curiosity Over Certainty
At Movement Professional, we talk often about being obsessively curious. This mindset is especially important when working with people in pain, or those who’ve “tried everything” and still feel stuck.
Curiosity allows us to notice the patterns others might miss. To ask, What happens if we try this differently? or What’s actually behind that tightness or fatigue? or What matters most to this person right now?
It also makes us better listeners.
Instead of just diagnosing and directing, we observe, we ask, and we adapt. We might try a breathing pattern to unlock hip motion. We might load a joint that seems fragile and watch it thrive. We might toss aside a rehab exercise because it’s not landing with the person—even if it “should” be working.
This process isn’t chaotic—it’s informed by evidence, experience, and intuition. But it’s not chained to protocol. It allows space for surprise and emergence. And that’s where the most meaningful change happens.
Letting Go of the “One Right Way”
There’s nothing wrong with having principles, frameworks, or systems. But when those become rigid rules instead of flexible tools, they limit us—and the people we’re trying to help.
Letting go of the “one right way” doesn’t mean abandoning science or structure. It means holding those tools lightly and applying them with context and care. It means having the courage to stay grounded when the path forward isn’t obvious.
The paradox is this: when we allow uncertainty into the room, people often feel more safe, not less. They sense that we’re not here to fit them into a method but to find something that actually fits them.
And in that space—between evidence and experience, structure and adaptability, knowledge and not-knowing—true confidence is built.
Closing Thought
Uncertainty isn’t a threat to our authority as health and fitness professionals—it’s a sign of maturity. It means we’ve moved past needing to prove we’re right and into the realm of being truly helpful.
So here’s to being confident in uncertainty. To exploring, adapting, and being humble enough to say, “Let’s learn together.” That’s not weakness—it’s the foundation of trust, resilience, and real transformation.