How to enjoy thinking about the future - sans stress

July 16, 2010 1:00 PM

How can I plan and enjoy wondering about the future without spiraling into worry.

I am the queen of worry. There are some days when all I do is jump from one worry to the next, and when I stop worrying I worry if I should be worrying!

I am working on not worrying all the time, but specifically, I would love your tips on how not to get worried when thinking about the future and plans. For example, right now I am half way through college. I had been thinking about going to law school. But now I am not so sure this is what I want to do. So I am starting to explore other training and education programs to do post grad. But I don't relax and realize I have plenty of time to noodle around with ideas and research(I am definitely sticking with my undergrad path that I'm on, so I don't need to make any decisions for some time). Instead I start worrying, what if my parents won't be cool with my alternate plan, what if I can't figure out the best plan, what if I fall in love with the perfect man and I am enrolled in a super inflexible program or career and can't be with him. Yeah, sounds a bit silly I know.

I am also a major perfectionist. I feel guilt for not having everything together or something, or am scared that if I screw something up, then I will ruin my whole life somehow. I guess alot of my thinking is tainted by a slippery slope fallacy. And anything I care about feels urgent. So when I start worrying about what I will do with my post graduate life, I might waste the whole afternoon trying to figure that out, and miss studying for class the next day!

So how do you learn to allow yourself to hit dead ends when planning, without freaking out? How do you let yourself know that you don't have to get everything right the first time to have a happy life?

posted by anonymous to Grab Bag (11 answers total)

I have this problem too. What has worked for me is to occasionally meditate, as a way to practice being aware of my thoughts. That way, when I find myself not just planning/thinking about the future, but actively worrying about the remotest of possible contingencies, I can realize "Hey, you're thinking about something that really makes no sense whatsoever," and divert my mental energy to doing something more relevant (like studying or writing my thesis or whatever).

Also, I find that perfectionism is a really good wall to hide behind when you're afraid of failing -- you don't even have to take any risks or expose your work or ideas to potential ridicule, because you aren't going to submit any articles or show any art or anything unless it's Absolutely Perfect. Since you can never be perfect, you never have to do anything. I'm not saying to screw something up on purpose, but you should start incorporating the phrase "Good enough" into your vocabulary. Some things you will always want to have as close to perfect as possible (undergrad thesis, capstone project, etc.), but some things don't really matter at all in the long run (your plan about might happen in five years if you fall madly in love with someone who may not exist). You've got to learn to focus your perfectionism on what actually matters, not what you're worried about at that particular instant.

Finally, your campus probably has a career center, and you probably have an academic advisor. You should use both of those things. The career center probably has some resources that can help you figure out what kind of things you might want to do in the future. Your academic advisor can probably tell you what classes you need to be taking so you can go do what you want after college. If they can't tell you, go get a new advisor.

A lot of people apply to law school, grad school, etc., because they can't figure out what they want to do next. It doesn't usually work out that great for them -- they frequently end up either with a degree they don't particularly want to use and a lot of debt, or no degree and a lot of debt. So don't think so much about "what might happen" (and for crying out loud, don't worry too much about what your parents might think, unless your alternate plan is to become a hired assassin or a drug mule or something. Your parents don't have to live your life, you do. Going to law school because Mommy and Daddy want to have a kid who's a lawyer? Recipe for disaster and misery.) Think about what kinds of stuff you'd really like to be doing in five or ten years, whether it's being a lawyer, or being a businessperson, or juggling flaming objects in the circus, or having a llama farm. Then go do the stuff that makes it the most likely that you'll get to do the stuff you care about. (Mostly your plans won't work out quite the way you thought they would, anyway. There's a couple sayings that apply: "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans," and "Be careful what you wish for." Sometimes you just have to roll with the punches. But worrying won't really help you very much -- it's good to be aware of what might go wrong, but it's useless to dwell on it.)
posted by kataclysm at 1:25 PM on July 16, 2010

Yeah, this is why I don't plan. Obviously that's not a solution however.

What I do is always hold onto the idea that things will turn out alright. How many genuinely miserable (disregarding mental health issues and shitty, but temporary situations) people have you met in your life? Not zero, but probably only a few. How many people in your life have you met who go through life, nodding their head at what comes at them, dealing with it, and continuing on? Probably a lot.

Most of the time, for people who have their faculties about them, things turn out okay. Not always the way they plan them to turn out, but okay anyway. What if your parents aren't cool with your career plan? Well, if you stick to your guns, they'll just have to deal. Unless you've got ...difficult... parents, they'll get over it. Most parents would rather see their children as successes any way they can. If they don't deal? Well, fuck it. You're your own person and "disappointing" one's parents -- or, rather, disappointing their expectations which neglect your desires -- with your chin up and your resolve steady is a rite of passage.

That's just one example. If you're like me, you usually worry about that spiraling doomsday scenario. The one where you end up impoverished on the street, begging for scraps, all because you decided to take Path X instead of Path Y. Chances are if you're realistically considering law school, you've got the faculties to make that an unreasonable future.

If you're wondering what happens if things go bad, well, here's a personal story. I've had a lot of Bad Shit (multiple-deaths-leave-a-25-year-old-in-charge bad) go down recently, the entirety of which was completely out of my hands. Before this, I always looked at people in situations like mine, wondering where their happiness came from. Everything about their lives looked shitty, and I had no idea how they kept their head up. Now that it has happened to me, I see that the problems are just that: problems. And problems have solutions. Some are hard, yes. But I'm still leading what many would call a pretty good, rewarding and fun life. Because those problems are the interruptions, not the whole. So when you freak out, remember that. Anything that comes your way will eventually be "solved," one way or another. And the rest of your life will go on, and will be as rewarding as you make it out to be.

Good luck.
posted by griphus at 1:26 PM on July 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Remember: Only death and taxes...

the rest, it's not really as important as having a healthy good time until you die.
posted by Tarumba at 1:32 PM on July 16, 2010

I highly recommend The Anxiety & Phobia Workbook.

I'm a chronic worrier (and I'm fairly certain I have anxiety, as it runs in my family), and this book has been incredibly helpful. One of the biggest things the book has helped me with is the negative self-talk.

For example, I've been monogamous for the last 6-7 years aside from a few months, and I have NEVER engaged in risky sexual behavior (always used protection, etc). Recently, when I went to the DR she suggested I get the full STD panel just to make sure I was clear. (I'm getting married in March, so it was a reasonable thing to do.) I'd had it done last year (and was monogamous since then) and came up clean, but I just couldn't help worrying about all the terrible things I could have caught (or that didn't get caught the first time around for some insane reason) and what I'd do if I'd infected my fiance or previous partners (kill myself, was all I could think of). In reality, the odds that I'd come back HIV positive (or some other STD) are basically zero. (I'm all clear! :D)

Realizing that I'm causing my own worry a good amount of the time, and stopping the cycle, has helped tremendously. It'll take a lot of hard work, and you may struggle with it for a long, long time. I still do. But I now realize when I'm being ridiculous, and I have strategies that help me quiet/silence those negative thoughts.


I'm working on getting myself into therapy, which is something that could only help us. Having supportive/understanding people in my life has help a lot also, but that's hard to come by for some reason. Sometimes it helps just to vent and have someone tell you how silly and irrational you are being.

Good luck, and be strong!
posted by two lights above the sea at 1:42 PM on July 16, 2010

I kind of hate to suggest this, because it's pretty much an AskMefi cliche. But: Your college probably has a mental health or counseling office with people whose entire jobs consist of helping students like you deal with stress and worry. If your college offers resources like those for free, then there is no reason to not take advantage of them.

Barring that, you can take up yoga and meditation. Exercise more. One thing that I've found particularly useful in dealing with worrying thoughts about the future is to carve out some time during the day, like maybe an hour, where you can do whatever you want without any guilt. If you're anything like me, when you goof off and don't think about your future and don't study for a while, you feel really awful, which increases the stress levels and makes you worry more. Deliberately setting time aside to watch a stupid tv show or something satisfies your need to be in control of your schedule and lets you quiet the stressed-out voice in your head for a while.
posted by pecknpah at 1:47 PM on July 16, 2010

If you think you can just sit down and plan the rest of your life out and everything will go according to plan, I'm sorry to say this, but you are... stupid ;) Very, very stupid.

Ok, I am just joking there, but seriously, things are often not going to turn out the way you plan them. You have to accept that. What matters in life is doing stuff and taking action. The outcome doesn't matter. Because when you take action, you get feedback, and you learn, and you get better at life.

Planning is nice, but it's not action.
posted by Theloupgarou at 1:49 PM on July 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

A minimum of three hours of aerobic exercise a week should help significantly.
posted by KokuRyu at 2:51 PM on July 16, 2010

I have learned not to worry. At one point in my life I was on the verge of being an end of the world survavilist type due to worries about the future-Here is how I overcame that without really trying:

I stopped reading bad news stories exclusively and stopped listening to people giving me reasons there life sucked or the world was about to end. I still read this things but I also have made of point of reading good news and positive outlooks and outcomes, and have discovered that most times life just goes on.

I took a rational look at the people around me who had success in life and those who didn't. For the most part the successful (meaning they had adequate shelter, food and hobbies all provided for by themselves) people and the unsuccessful ones where at there spots in life due to there own choices, and only partly due to circumstances. And the biggest difference was how the responded to the bad things. The successful ones fixed the problems and made the changes necessary to avoid similair problems. The really successful ones acting proactively to avoid bad things as much as possible.

I started concentrating on the 95% of life that is going well and making me happy instead of the 5% of my mistakes. I found that the positive got rid of the negative pretty quick, whereas just trying to end the negative never really got anywhere and often got worse because i neglected the things going well that brought me joy.

I was grateful for what I had that was important-a full belly, a warm place to sleep and good friends/family to share it all with. The rest was just gravy.

I gained coinfidence in my ability to handle what comes my way-good and bad. Someday it may all go away or get taken away-and it it does maybe I will survive it, maybe I won't but I ain't gonna let a vague someday ruin a really good today.

And lastly I came to term with the fact that someday, no matter how well prepared or much money I have or anything I will die and it won't really matter, so just live life and enjoy being alive, it won't last forever.
posted by bartonlong at 3:34 PM on July 16, 2010

ok after rereading that I realize the difference between there/their but i don't guess I do when typing...
posted by bartonlong at 3:35 PM on July 16, 2010

As a fellow anxiety sufferer, may I gently point out that you are worrying about worrying. :-)

I highly recommend cognitive therapy. For me, it was incredibly effective, especially as I tend to over-think things. You could find a therapist, or there is a good book IIRC called "The Feeling Good Handbook." It helps you slow down the racing, automatic thoughts that are leading to your anxiety, and help you examine them one by one.

I looked at my anxiety this way: Picture your front yard buried in snow. Naturally, as you travel in and out you repeatedly use the path which has been shoveled. Cognitive therapy helped me clear a new path.
posted by skidoom at 12:02 AM on July 17, 2010

Get into psychotherapy, it will help you get into yourself and increase your sense of well being as well as make confident decisions.
posted by inlimbow at 1:38 PM on July 20, 2010