Easing Worry & Anxiety With "What If?"
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For all the worriers out there — which is all of us from time to time.
*Bonus: a free worksheet to practice this yourself. Link is at the bottom of this post.
Worrying and anxiety is suffering an outcome that doesn't yet exist, and it really impacts your ability to be in the moment. Here’s a little tool to help reframe your mindset when you find yourself anticipating negative outcomes.
It can be human nature to anticipate catastrophe and negative outcomes. Reframing these initial negative thoughts is a small but important way you can take pause to reflect on your worry and self-doubts and turn them into more positive or neutral feelings about the situation you’re in.
A powerful habit to get into is to frame things up as “What if everything goes right?”
For example, if you’re applying for a new role or have just had your first interview, you might feel thoughts creeping in to immediately doubt yourself: What if I bombed that interview or they didn’t like me? What if I’m not ready or good enough for this new role?
Taking a second to rewrite that statement in your brain means giving yourself a chance to avoid staying focused on the worst possible outcome. It’s all about changing the “What if?” statements into something positive, or at least more neutral: What if I made a great impression on the interviewer and they think I’m a great candidate? What if I’m perfectly prepared to take on this new role?
The unpredictability of life.
There are always going to be parts of your life and circumstances that you cannot control — instead of assuming the worst possible outcome, give yourself the chance to feel confident and brave about things going well and new possibilities. Or at least provide some balance for your brain from dreading bad outcomes.
Often the worst case scenarios we dread and worry about never come true. If you are in the habit of worrying and being anxious about only negative outcomes all the time, it won’t prevent them from happening. It will, however, rob your present moments of some joy by mentally suffering negative outcomes that haven’t happened yet — and likely never will.
Reframing “What if?” statements also helps to shine compassion on others in ways you might not have considered before. For example, maybe there’s someone at work that you butt heads with or historically don’t get along well. What if you met them in your life in a completely different context and really liked each other? What if in other circumstances you were good friends?
This is not about delusional thinking.
Just because you reframe situations with more positive “What if” statements, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to magically manifest all positive outcomes into existence and everything in your life will go perfect forever. Some great, and some bad things will still happen to you.
This is just a way to shift your mindset when you are experiencing fears about something that’s in flux or upcoming, or unresolved in your life. The goal here is to easy some unnecessary anxiety and suffering on your end by pulling your brain out of a doom loop of everything turning out badly.
Some context to the worksheet:
In the worksheet attached, you’ll be guided to reflect on some things going on in your life — whether it’s a new job, applying to a different role, change at work, or something happening in your personal life — and identify where you might be dwelling on negative outcomes that don’t exist. Then, you’ll reflect on how you can shift your mindset a little and hopefully relieve some anxious thoughts.
Let us know what you think once you’ve gone through the activity, we’d love to hear about it.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE WORKSHEET
Related Blogs:
Three Non-negotiable Mindsets & Skills for Leaders
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This article was created by Galen Emanuele for the #culturedrop. Free leadership and team culture content in less than 5 minutes a week. Check out the rest of this month's content and subscribe to the Culture Drop at https://bit.ly/culturedrop