I’ve been reflecting on my life and how much time I have wasted worrying about things which may never happen and how to get out of that mindset and enjoy today more..

Generally my concerns are about being made redundant and the impact that may have, albeit the industry I work within is subject to regular ups and downs, re-organisations, mergers, etc on a relatively regular basis. I’ve been made redundant once in > 30 years of working but through that time multiple ‘changes’ so likely not a bad outcome as that was 10 years ago and I had no real unemployment.

I’ve tried to focus upon what is directly in front of me – healthy and lovely family, daughter about to start Uni doing her preferred choice of course, employed doing a job I generally enjoy, a few £’s in the bank for a rainy day, etc.

However, I still cannot stop worrying a bit about the future.

Any nuggets of wisdom which folks use to focus positively rather than worry…

Thanks!

Only worry about what you can control or influence. Anything else is wasted effort.

You could be using that effort to mitigate the possible  knock on effects of  the stuff you have no control over.
Instead of worrying about being made redundant, worry about setting yourself up with enough of a financial buffer to make it merely an inconvenience if it actually occurs.

Alcohol. The effect is temporary admittedly so probably not the best advice but if you need some instant relief it works wonders.

Mindfulness and naming the categories as above can be helpful. I used to use the Headspace app, but don’t feel the need to now.

Minimising alcohol consumption is also beneficial. Even small amounts give us disordered sleep cycles which can contribute to worrying and anxiety. Sedatives similarly.

Setting aside regular time to sort out the things that you can control – financial situation, investments, expenditure etc can be helpful.

OP……this isn’t meant to sound glib or “smart”. but basically you’ve answered your own question. Go back and read what you’ve written and you’ll see you’ve no real worries (other than things we all worry about).

Hope that helps, apologies if it doesn’t.

“The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A ****” by Mark Manson is a good resource.

Headspace (the app). Once you’ve done the initial foundation part, there are courses for managing anxiety (and similar) which specifically focus on acknowledging the emotion, labelling it and then moving on. Personally I find it very helpful as a way to help avoid getting drawn into worrying.

SSRIs have significantly reduced my worrying / anxiety. I still worry about things, just not too much…

The realisation that worrying changes nothing.  Moreover, the vast majority of things you worry about don’t happen.

You’re worrying about being made redundant?  Work out what your redundancy payment will be, get your CV out there, then park it all and go for a ride.  You’ve been made redundant once in over thirty years, how much time have you expended fretting about it?

I have had therapy for this! So, you can have some of the benefit of my expenditure…

Set aside Worry Time. Pick 20min slot in each day. You are not allowed to worry at any other time of day – if you catch yourself having a ‘what if’ or ‘might’ thought, write it down but then distract yourself and move on. When it’s Worry Time, look at your list. Divide the items into things that are actually about to happen, and things that are just ‘coulds’.

Of the things that are actually about to happen, are there things you can do to mitigate them or stop them? Or are the effects not that serious compared to what you could do to stop it happening? Eg, you could stop cats getting into your garden by surrounding the entire space with chicken wire on all sides – or you could just accept that cats will get in from time to time.

Of the things that are just ‘coulds’, try and leave them. Ask yourself how likely it is to happen, whether it’s in your control, and whether the effect would absolutely definitely be that bad.

It sounds silly, but it does help train your brain to leave things and move on, and often when you back to the worry rather than working on it as soon as it pops into your head, it seems like less of a worry. You might even find yourself wondering what you were worrying about.

Next:

When there’s something you worried about that doesn’t come to pass, take time to consciously tell yourself ‘it all worked out’. I didn’t miss that flight, I didn’t get a parking fine – whatever. Training your brain to realise that things generally work out rather than noticing only when they don’t reduces worrying.

And:

Check yourself for putting expectation into your thoughts. If you’re using the word ‘should’ then you’re loading yourself with duty, expectation, and pressure. Reframe should to could, to emphasise the choices and free will that you have. Instead of ‘I should go home and check if I left the oven on’, make it ‘I could go home and check if I left the oven on’. And then you’ll likely think ‘or instead I could ask my neighbour to pop in’, ‘or it’ll wait until I get back’.

Finally:

I’m a project manager by trade. Risk analysis is second nature. Professionally, I would look at a risk (a thing that might happen), and weigh up the mitigation cost against the likelihood of the risk and its impact. The cost would include staff time spent problem solving, as well as the actual building of the cat proof fence, or whatever. I realised I wasn’t applying the same process to my worries. By viewing time spent worrying and carrying out safety activities (like double and triple checking the oven is off) as a cost to me and my time with my family, I found it easier to feel like I could just leave things to sit in the ‘well, they might happen and I’ll deal with it then’ column.

Hope that helps! A search online for ‘worry management’ and ‘rumination’ will probably throw up some useful resources and reading.

Perchycougar +1

Only worry about what you can control or influence. Anything else is wasted effort.

I’ve managed to get into this mindset, took 20 years mind you.

Anything that you can meaningfully impact upon, do something about it. Anything else, you can do stuff, but there’s no point in taking it further than that.

I have a friend in the UK who has worrying down to a fine art, i swear she’s going to shorten her life significantly. But i’ve managed to persuade her to stop worrying about a few of the worst things. Which means she’s now got a FT job, and a couple of promotions and some letters after her name. So now she gets paid enough to stop worrying about some other things that i couldn’t get her to stop worrying about earlier…

Set aside Worry Time. Pick 20min slot in each day. You are not allowed to worry at any other time of day – if you catch yourself having a ‘what if’ or ‘might’ thought, write it down but then distract yourself and move on. When it’s Worry Time, look at your list. Divide the items into things that are actually about to happen, and things that are just ‘coulds’.

Seconded.

I’m not really a worrier, but happened to be writing about this for work at a time of particular professional stress (working with a right ****).

I found it worked a charm in helping me sleep better.

Nice video from the BBC here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03rwr72

Next:

When there’s something you worried about that doesn’t come to pass, take time to consciously tell yourself ‘it all worked out’.

I recently underwent a course of CBT too, for anxiety and worry. A large part of it concentrated on what Hannah has said above. I am trying to concentrate on the way things have turned out previously due to my competence or dedication rather than concentrating on stuff that can go wrong. There is a chance I may get made redundant later this year, but I’m currently focussing on the fact I’ve only been made redundant once, and it all turned out for the best.

I also found that CBT was good as it was just nice to have someone to talk to, for an hour a week, that isn’t emotionallly invested.

I’m not a worrier by nature but

However, I still cannot stop worrying a bit about the future.

Everyone does, y’know? This is the human condition. The trick is not to let it overwhelm you and stop you in your tracks. As others have said, the more you control the thing you can, the less the things you can’t control seem as important.

Medication and counselling.

It sounds silly

No it doesn’t, not at all.  You’ve hit the nail on the head because (as you obviously know) you’ve just described the fundamentals of Risk Management.

We define risk as likelihood x severity (or, is the shit actually in danger of hitting the fan, and how widely will it be distributed if it does?  Is redundancy on the cards?  Are you worrying about “being made redundant” or are you actually worrying about “not being able to pay the mortgage”?).

We then consider actions.  Accept / Avoid / Transfer / Mitigate.  I’ve heard this referred to as “the four horsemen” which I quite like.

Accept:  There’s a risk of redundancy but screw it, it’s low and I’m sure it’ll all work out fine.

Avoid:  You know what, I don’t need to work anyway, I’ll hand in my notice and take early retirement.  Can’t be made redundant if I’m not working.

Transfer:  This is the “make it someone else’s problem” option.  My partner could be earning more.

Mitigate:  I’m going to work harder to ensure that I’m invaluable when redundancies come around

Yet worrying addresses none of these things, it just adds to stress and anxiety whilst changing nothing.  Rather you need to consider “is this worry a legitimate concern” and if so “what am I doing about it?”

Should anyone care, I dun a blog post on the back of this.  Please go read it, I need the traffic. 😁

https://blueteamhackers.com/why-did-the-chicken-cross-the-road/

“The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A ****” by Mark Manson is a good resource.

A very good read, and echo the above only worry about what you can control.

It sounds silly, but it does help train your brain to leave things and move on

Not Silly at all, you train muscles to be stronger, more resillient, its only the same concept.

Some brilliant advice on this thread! This place is awesome.

As a fellow worrier, I have suffered with/do suffer with anxiety (and depression). But, as I’ve aged, I have got better at controlling it.

It took me a while to realise I’m quite normal, it is perfectly normal to worry about things. BUT, do not let them comsume me. Imagine not worrying about anything!! Odd

SSRIs have significantly reduced my worrying / anxiety.

+1 Better living through chemistry.

Chronic worrier here. Gets worse with age. I’ll be dead before I’m 50 because of it. I genuinely don’t understand how someone can just not worry about something. I worry constantly.

I became more of a worrier the more responsibilities I had, and like you OP the majority of my worries are family related – such as how could we cope if I lost my job, or how are we going to afford to help my son through university (if he even goes!), or how would my family cope with our care commitments with our daughter if something happened to me etc etc.

I do think some worrying is natural and even healthy, as the fact you are worrying shows to an extent you care about what happens to yourself and those around you, but as with most things there’s a balance.

I think with me a lot of the worrying is manifested and magnified due to my own lack of self confidence and often experiencing imposter syndrome.

Though I think hitting 50 has in a way helped,  I have recently had more of ‘I’ve made it this far and done this much in my life, I can cope, so F*** everything and everyone attitude’ (in a positive way).

I have also focused on being nicer to myself. I would have dismissed this as happy claptrap a few years ago, but I’m even seeing the benefit of some daily affirmations on my general mental wellbeing.

I am a worrier. I find things to worry about if I’m not actually worrying.

It’s very easy to focus so hard on these things that it can become overwhelming

Couple of things that help personally (when I remember to practice what I preach!)

– remember that life IS messy. There are no straight lines, things do not always go to plan, you cannot control everything – if we as humans try we cause ourselves unnecessary stress as it is just not feasible. That is the reality. Accepting this helps

– look for some good in every day. I’ve done 100 happy days a couple of times now, once in one of the hardest and darkest times. I’m not advocating putting shizzle all over social media – that can be toxic and as a side note, reducing social media consumption can help – but trying to find a small glimmer in every day, it can be a cup of tea, a smile from a stranger, cutting the grass, a cracking ride, whatever but just looking for something different every day shifts focus to the positives and is a great distraction til this becomes habit

The one thing guaranteed is that life won’t turn out the way you expect

A mate of mine used to say that all the time, and as I’ve got older it seems to become the reality. So try and embrace the ride. As posted up there, life is messy, there’s no real straight lines.

And lastly even the dali llama worries.

Sertraline, a beer after the kids are in bed, exhaustion from family life.
Sunday morning martial arts class helps loads more than I could’ve imagined, and since I inherited one of the kids’ ukulele just lying on the bed trying to make nice noises blanks out my self-talk for a while.

Exercise works best for me, having tried most of the other things posted here.  YMMV.  Needs to be frequent though – several times a week, for me, or it doesn’t work.  Heavens, the best discovery for me was 15 minutes of interval training several times per week was like owning ‘sunshine in a bag’.

And absorbing personal projects, too.  The more complicated the better.

I saw a mention of headspace. I’d recommend giving meditation a go. I’ve just started again but signed up to Balance. It’s very similar and free for a year. It takes time to get it but it can really clear my head – the only other thing I found worked as well was technical MTB where you are focussed in the moment. Bit like hitting a reset and gives your mind a break.

The other thing, also mentioned are act/CBT techniques

https://www.nhs.uk/every-mind-matters/mental-wellbeing-tips/self-help-cbt-techniques/tackling-your-worries/

I found the worry tree helped. Framing things as real or hypothetical. Acknowledging them (it’s a survival thing except we went too quickly from worrying about predators to stuff like work) and labelling them as “just worry” weirdly helped. It is normal, you can live with it just don’t let it change your behaviour and outlook.

If it is affecting life, and you have private health care, think about finding some talking therapy. It’s like stw but with more expertise and better ideas.

“interval training”

I agree on that. A hard ride, be that a fast club ride or some intervals really does wonders!

I worry about things but also find myself wishing they would happen.  No wonder no therapists wants me anywhere near them.

I manage it by setting irrelevant goals and pursuing them with all my focus.

And when that doesn’t work I drink.

Dunno why but this thread made me think of:

That should sort anyone’s anxiety out right.

Any nuggets of wisdom which folks use to focus positively rather than worry…

You’ll waste your life worrying about things that’ll never happen, then something totally unexpected will turn up to piss on your parade.

I’d just go for a ride mate…

Sertraline, a beer after the kids are in bed, exhaustion from family life.

This is my daily, plus I have 8am-8:30am alone before work within which I have a coffee and vaguely watch YouTube snippets, plus an annual late May “mates” holiday overseas, an escape environment where it’s warm sunny, has beer and non of the day to day issues.

Mindfullness does work for me – I used it at 3:30am today to stop my mind racing, but I’m very conscious I should make it and a quiet space for me a daily occurrence.

Only worry about what you can control or influence. Anything else is wasted effort.

It would be nice if the world were quite so monochrome simple. In reality there are plenty of borderline things that you have limited agency over, but can still do something minor about, climate change for example. Clearly as individuals, there’s little many of us can do in macro terms, but it’s normal to be concerned, though not obsessed by something that’s an existential threat to humanity. Ultimately it’s about proportion, which I guess is what Hannah is saying in a more structured way.

But in the case of global warming, for example, a degree of proportionate worry is what motivates me to do the smaller things that I can to mitigate things at a micro-level – purchase decisions, behaviour etc – even if it’s not going to have a huge impact. That said, if a bike is broken, creaking or whatever, I find it incredibly hard to rest until I’ve fixed it or at least taken steps towards fixing it.

So, yes, but … a degree of worry isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s a bit like fear. In a mountaineering scenario, for example, fear is what keeps you alive, similarly on bikes. Where things become problematic is when your level of fear becomes uncoupled from the actual situation in either direction, vis you don’t recognise a particularly hazardous situation (and, for example, get avalanched) or conversely, you’re so hyper-aware of hazards that you avoid quite manageable scenarios.

What I would like to do however, is be able to manage the need to fix broken things, particularly bike things, asap, though in many ways, that’s actually quite a good thing. Hmmm…

Exercise works best for me, having tried most of the other things posted here.  YMMV.  Needs to be frequent though – several times a week, for me, or it doesn’t work.  Heavens, the best discovery for me was 15 minutes of interval training several times per week was like owning ‘sunshine in a bag’.

And absorbing personal projects, too.  The more complicated the better.

Pretty much this – dog walks, trail runs and MTB rides all make a massive difference for me as I’m not thinking about work/home or worrying while trying to get down a sketchy descent. It gives my mind a break from whatever I’m mulling over and when I get back to it, I seem to have a bit more perspective. Being physically tired helps a lot when trying to sleep too.

I also keep my mind busy planning something, a holiday, a bike build, a DIY project or anything else.

You need a middle aged man’s hobby like model trains where you can build a perfect little world over which you exercise total beneficent control…and exclude the unpredictable and unfair world outside.

Alternatively, you can for totally selfish reasons go and do something that helps other people and makes a small but real difference in the world. Cook some breakfasts for homeless people at a shelter. Clean up a kids playplark. Pack and drop off some boxes for a food bank. Drive an OAP to a hospital appointment. Don’t tell anyone.

Another possible angle is to consider imposter syndrome. This is where you feel that you are in a position but don’t deserve to be and are worried about being found out.

Id be interested if those who have had therapy feel that it has worked. It can be all very well doing the training but then when you are very stressed, you revert to type.

That’s an interesting point muddyjames.   Speaking for myself I’ve just been offered a golden albeit hard working opportunity to change jobs, but am seriously worried they’ve over estimated my abilities and they continue to throw gifts of encouragement at me!   It’s this that’s on my mind at 3am – can I do this? Will I get fired in 12 months?

These of course are classic “what ifs” in CBT land.   I’m using the above technique to turn it around by repeating a positive affirmation  “personal growth only comes from challenges we are not equipped to deal with at the start”…

Another possible angle is to consider imposter syndrome. This is where you feel that you are in a position but don’t deserve to be and are worried about being found out.

Everyone is winging it, it some shape or form.

Drugs.

Wine.

Beer.

Bikes & riding.

Living the life I want to live and not the life most people live because “that’s just what you do”.

I found the worry tree helped. Framing things as real or hypothetical. Acknowledging them (it’s a survival thing except we went too quickly from worrying about predators to stuff like work) and labelling them as “just worry” weirdly helped. It is normal, you can live with it just don’t let it change your behaviour and outlook.

Yeah.  Again, this is Risk Management.  My partner has set up working from home recently, part of the process was a risk assessment.(which was appallingly written).  One of her concerns was an electric fire.  I explained that it was fine because a) it had never worked since we moved in and b) if it suddenly decided to change its mind one day and spontaneously flare into life, it was never going to work again because I’d cut off the power cable.  She said “oh, I’ll not write that down then.”  I said no, you absolutely should write it down because it’s a textbook example; you’ve identified a potential risk and can explain in detail what steps have been taken to mitigate it.

What you’re describing here sounds like broadly the same idea.  You’re finding things to worry about and then rather than just rudderlessly worrying about anything and everything all at once, you’re intellectualising it and coming up with reassurances as to why x may be a genuine concern but y is not.  That’s a powerful strategy, it’s far better than a “well, just stop worrying then” glib handwave.