In our family, we call worries ” What-Ifs”. They are the thoughts that pop up in our minds when presented with well, could be anything in life. They follow a formula, What if …………………and this bad thing happens”? “What if I write the book and no one wants to read it cuz it sucks”. “What if I go to school and can’t find my way around the building”, “What if I ask for more money and they say no”? See what I mean these are what we call what-ifs.
I mean in fairness our brains are trying to protect us from danger and some what-ifs are accurate. What if I drive in this hurricane, I might be hurt, or What if I ski this expert trail ( without the skill) I could fall and get hurt.
What IFs really are just thoughts, not facts. The problem is we think our thoughts are facts and in situations where our thoughts are not serving us well we need to get a grip in order to live the lives we want to have.
Let me give you an example. I have a few clients who want to write a book. Their What- ifs are some version of ” What if I write the book and it sucks so no one reads it”? This kind of what-if can easily lead to not writing the book.
One solution to what-ifs is to do a THOUGHT DOWNLOAD….it sounds fancy, doesn’t it? A thought download, as it sounds means getting out a sheet of paper and writing down your thoughts, all of them about the situation, the point is to get them out of you and onto paper so you can see them for what they are just thoughts. This clears the space for you to decide what to do about the thoughts, it is kind of like a What IF buster.
Once the thoughts are on paper you can look and them and evaluate their accuracy or in other words are they factual. So ” What if I drive in a hurricane and get in an accident?” might be a what if that has validity versus “What if I write a book and it sucks” which can easily turn out to be invalid if you really want to write a book.
So next time you notice What-Ifs in your mind, give a thought download a try, and see what happens.
As always I hope this helps.