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How to Stop Worrying and Catastrophising?
You finally get that promotion that you worked so hard to get, you’re excited about the new role, you’re feeling proud of yourself……and then the big “what if” hits you like a tone of bricks. “What if I can’t do the job? What if I can’t handle the work load? What if my work colleagues don’t think I deserve the promotion? What if I fail and lose my job? …..
…… suddenly all the positive feelings that you had are replaced by feelings of fear, dread, and anxiety, and you ask yourself, “why can’t I ever enjoy any new challenge, changes or new opportunities just like everyone else can? “What’s wrong with me?” The answer is, because you are a worrier and a catastrophiser. There are people who a) worry excessively and do not take risks, and therefore rarely grow both personally or professionally, the pessimist, b) there are people who never worry and take many risks that don’t always work out for them, the optimist, c) and then there are people who know how to regulate their emotions for every situation, the realist. In this post you will learn how to stop worrying and how to think like a realist.
Your body is designed to act on whatever your mind thinks. If you think of a negative, your brain will release the necessary chemicals it needs to deal with whatever you are worried about, in particular, adrenalin. When you think of a positive, your brain releases, serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins, the happy feel-good chemicals. So, if you are about to go to your favourite concert, you will feel excitement, happy, energetic, and motivated. When you are dealing with a major stressor such as, a relationship breakup, you might feel sadness, stress, and/or anger. When the right emotion/s match the situation, then you are reacting to the situation ‘normally’. But when your emotion/s are exaggerated, or unwarranted, and you over-react, then all you are doing is causing yourself unnecessary distress, and wearing yourself both physical and mentally. How many times have you worried excessively only to discover that it wasn’t as bad as what you thought it would be?
Your mind controls the chemicals that your brain releases, and the chemicals that your brain releases creates the physiological symptoms that are commonly experienced by that chemical. So, every time you worry your body will tense up, and depending on how much you worry, you might even experience the symptoms of anxiety, which is something that you definitely want to prevent.
Don’t get me wrong, having the correct amount of worry is a normal response when it is needed. You don’t want to worry too much or too little, just the right amount of worry to have the motivation and energy to deal with what you need to deal with.
So, how do you regulate your emotions and stop worrying unnecessarily? By first, assessing the seriousness of a situation?
There are two factors that you need to assess to determine how serious a situation is,
a) the probability of the worse-case scenario occurring, and b) the negative impact or effect that you are likely to experience should the ‘worse-case scenario’ was to happen.
Let’s look at each factor separately.
Assessing the Probability
When we assess the probability, we are looking at how likely an event is likely to occur. Putting aside your emotions, and looking at the situation logically, what is the likelihood of the worse-case scenario to happen?
When you are making that assessment, you need to consider all possible factors that would have an influence on the outcome. You need to collect all possible facts for and against to come to an accurate conclusion, and you need to avoid relying on your own assumptions. Assumptions are usually based on your feelings and thoughts rather than on objective facts.
For example, let’s use the following scenario to demonstrate how to conduct an objective assessment.
A work colleague tells you that she heard that the organisation was going through some changes and that they were making some positions redundant. You immediately jump to the worse-case scenario of losing your job, not being able to find another, and losing your house.
Let’s assess the probability of this worse-case scenario happening by collecting the facts. We will need to work out the probability of losing your job, then the probability of not being able to find another job, and finally the probability of losing your house. Of course, if the probability of losing your job is zero to low, then there is no need to work out the probability of not being able to find another job or of losing your house. You would only need to do this if there is a medium to high chance of losing your job.
What is the chance of losing your job, and how much of a negative impact is it likely to have on you and your life?
- Don’t beat around the bush, get the information directly from the person who knows that information, after all it might only be a rumour not worth worrying about. As scary as it might be to face the truth, you are better off finding out now so as to not waste time worrying about something that wasn’t going to happen. Get the information directly from your manager or Human Resources, don’t rely on a rumour. Find out if the rumour is true, are they making positions redundant, and if so, is your department being targeted, and if so, is your position one of the positions being made redundant?
If the answer is ‘no’ to all the above questions, then there is no need to worry nor is there any need to continue your assessment.
2. But what if you find out that your position is going to be made redundant? Then you will need to assess the likelihood of not being able to gain an alternative suitable position when your position with the organisation is made redundant.
Factors that you would need to take into account when making your assessment include, what your chance of finding another similar or suitable position is, is your role specialised or is there a lot of competition that you will have to come up against? out there, have you got strong experience that is likely to be an advantage, are there any factors that might be considered a disadvantage like your age, qualifications, location et cetera? The best way to get as many of these questions answered is to go on job search website and start looking at available jobs that you might stand a chance of getting.
Assessing the Effects
So, if from your assessment you found that there is no chance of losing your job and no chance of not being able to find another job if you had to seek alternative employment, then there would be no need to assess the probability of losing your house. However, if there is a chance of losing your job, and even if your assessment indicated that you would not have any difficulties finding another job, it might still be worth your while assessing your chance of losing your house. In that case you would need to take into account factors such as, how many advanced mortgage repayments have you made on your house, and how much time does that give you, and do you have another source of income coming in that you can depend on should you need to while you are out of work, will you get a redundancy payout, do you have any savings, do you have support that you could depend on?
If your assessment indicated that you have nothing to worry about, then you have saved yourself a lot of unnecessary worry, simply by collecting the facts.
Breaking the habit of excessive worrying takes time and the correct techniques. You don’t want to constantly go through the rollercoaster of over-reacting. How many times have you worried about something that caused you so much anxiety only to find out that it wasn’t that bad? If you want to stop worrying then start changing your bad habit of thinking, because that is all it is – a bad habit.
If you want to learn more on how to change your thinking, and heal your anxiety, check out my one-hour educational video about Anxiety. The video will teach you how to: a) stop worrying, stop your fear of failure, and control your emotions and anxiety. HEAL YOUR ANXIETY
