Verified by 
(Adapted from Worry Less, Live More)
with Sue Orsillo
“What if I get exposed to COVID-19 at the grocery store?” “What if I am unable to finish this project?” “What if this person doesn’t like me?” “What if I’m excluded from this opportunity?”
We all naturally experience thoughts about the future. On the one hand, our ability to imagine the future and plan for it is one of our greatest human abilities. It is an essential tool for survival that facilitates creative problem-solving. On the other, our capacity to imagine innumerable threats puts us at risk for chronic worry. Because of inherited tendencies, modeling from important people in our lives, or chronic stress and threat that has naturally led us to be on guard, we can get hooked into a never-ending cycle of worry and intense stress that degrades our quality of life.
Attending and responding to thoughts about the future can be extremely helpful in some situations and distracting and draining in others. Why does this happen? And how can we tell the difference?
One way to work more effectively with future thoughts is to practice noticing when they reflect problem-solving and when they reflect worry. For example, preparing for an outdoor socially distant visit with a family member, it can be helpful to attend to thoughts like: “Where can I put my hand sanitizer and mask so I remember to bring them? What route can I take that will be the least crowded?” Turning toward these thoughts and engaging with them might increase the chances that we have a safer visit.
On the other hand, narrowly focusing on thoughts about future threats and outcomes we can’t control can increase our distress. When thoughts like : “What if I get exposed despite my best efforts? What if my friend thinks I’m not being careful enough?” arise, it can be easy to get hooked by them. We care about our health and what others think about us and it’s scary to imagine we don’t have total control over those things. But, once we are pulled into this cycle of worry over uncontrollable outcomes, we often lose sight of why we care about visit and instead focus on all the ways it could go wrong, which can reduce the satisfaction of the visit.
It can be tricky to distinguish worry from problem-solving. And, sometimes we start preparing or problem solving to enhance our life in some way and then slip into worrying about things that may or may not happen, without awareness. One habit we can work on is noticing when we are engaged in thoughts about the future and considering the following questions:
- Is this something that is likely to happen? We use our mental resources more effectively if we are focused on the things that are more likely to happen. It is very natural for thoughts about unlikely outcomes to arise, of course. With practice, we can come to notice when we are focused on unlikely outcomes and gently, compassionately shift our attention back to things that may benefit from our mental attention.
- Is this something that I can take action to prepare for, or to avoid? Sometimes we care deeply about a future outcome, but have limited control over its occurrence. On the other hand, some things we might be able to address with some concrete action. We can check the weather before we leave the house to make sure we are dressed warmly enough, although we cannot keep it from snowing.
- Will spending more time with these thoughts solve my problem? When your child has a fever, rash, and runny nose, consulting with the doctor’s office can be helpful. It may also be informative to read an article on the Internet. But spending 10 hours reading about possible illnesses probably doesn’t provide twice as much information as spending 5 hours reading.
- Am I trying to solve a problem or avoid uncertainty? We worry about a lot of things because we want to make the world certain. Yet this is not actually possible (a challenging reality we are all contending with during this pandemic). Although we seek certainty as a way of feeling more safe and secure, unfortunately, this often backfires. The more time and effort we invest into trying to find certainty in the uncertain, the more frustrated, helpless, and discouraged we become. When we notice this pattern, we can begin instead to focus on accepting uncertainty and turn our attention to the areas where we do have control (in other words, the actions we choose to take).
- Is attending to my thoughts and worries helping me move forward toward something I care about or getting in my way? Worries are often motivated by a desire to control what matters most to us personally. For example, love and a desire for a deep connection with our children can motivate us to take actions aimed at increasing their safety and ensuring their happiness. But, if we can’t accept the inevitability our children will encounter difficulties and experience pain, we may start to engage in worry-driven behaviors that hurt our relationships. Constantly sharing our worries with our children, seeking reassurance that they are doing well, and struggling to sit with their pain can actually create distance. Rather than drawing our children closer to us, these behaviors might lead them to withhold their problems from us.
- Will taking the action add meaning to my life? Sometimes, even if there is an action we might take in response to our worry, doing so can pull us away from living the life we want. If we are worried that we might get rejected, we can avoid that possibility by canceling a first date. Although that response makes it impossible for us to be rejected, it also removes the possibility that we could make a romantic connection. Worrying about rejection is a common thought most of us have when we try our new relationships. It becomes problematic only if having that worry leads us to avoid values-based actions – like opening ourselves up to others. Recognizing that it’s natural to have worry-related thoughts, and that we can still take meaningful actions, even when worries arise, help to give us the flexibility to make choices that bring purpose and meaning to our lives.
