How much time are you spending solving imaginary problems?

Do you ever find yourself worrying about something that might happen, even though there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it right now?

Your mind starts jumping ahead. What if this goes wrong? What if they say no? What if I make the wrong decision? And then, before you know it, you’ve spent a day or more trying to work out how you’ll deal with something that hasn’t actually happened.

I know how easy it is to do this. And part of the reason we keep doing it is that worrying can feel useful. If I think through every possibility now, maybe I’ll be prepared. Maybe I’ll know what to do. Maybe I can stop something bad from happening. It gives us a sense that we’re doing something.

The problem is that there’s a difference between planning for something and repeatedly worrying about it. Planning usually gets you to a point where you can decide what needs to happen next. Perhaps you need to make a phone call, get some information or make a decision. Once you’ve done what you can, there’s somewhere for the thought to go.

Worry can be very different. You keep running through versions of what might happen without getting any new information. You think you’ve reached the end of it, then another “what if?” appears and off you go again. This can leave you stressed and anxious.

And our minds aren’t necessarily very good at predicting these things. In a Penn State study, 29 people with generalized anxiety disorder recorded the things they were worrying about and then tracked what actually happened. Across all of the worries recorded, 91.4% of the predicted outcomes didn’t actually happen. It was a small study, so it doesn’t mean that 91.4% of everything you worry about won’t happen. But I think the finding is still a useful reminder of how convincing a possibility can feel when we’re imagining it.

So when you notice yourself getting caught in a worry loop, ask yourself a simple question: is there actually anything I can do about this today? If there is, work out the next useful thing you can do. And if there isn’t, take notice of that too. You might be trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist yet.