Track Record for Anxious Predictions: A Powerful Tool to Manage Future-Oriented Worry
Anxiety is one of the most common “negative” emotions we all feel and experience. I put the word “negative” in quotations because while anxiety is not a super fun emotion for most of us to experience, in and of itself, anxiety can be quite functional. Anxiety can alert us to potential danger and risk, gear up our minds and bodies for challenging tasks, and can serve as a protector from physical and emotional harm.
However, anxiety can quickly get away from us and work too hard to protect us, and over time, can shrink our lives in a way that leads to increased dissatisfaction, stress, and even loneliness. Anxiety run amok can take many forms, including: being too afraid to pursue relationships, being afraid to be emotionally vulnerable, being overly hesitant to express your honest thoughts/opinions/feelings with others, and not taking risks that can make life better (e.g. going for a new job, trying out a new club or sport, etc.).
When one is in an anxious state of mind, it often means that our thoughts and worries are future-oriented, i.e. we are concerned with potential negative consequences/outcomes that might occur in the future. These thoughts can come in many forms, here are some common examples: can look like “I don’t know about going to happy hour, I won’t have anything interesting to say and it’ll be awkward”, “if I share my real feelings, they’ll shut me down/stop loving me”, “they’ll turn me down if I ask them out”, “if I don’t take on that extra assignment, my boss won’t think I’m a team player and I might get fired”, “I have so much on my plate tomorrow, I know it’s going to be an awful day”. In CBT terms, these kinds of thoughts might be called fortune-telling and/or catastrophizing; basically, your mind stays locked into thinking about potential negative outcomes instead of considering the entire spectrum of possibilities (not just positive outcomes, but also neutral/okay/fine outcomes).
There’s no shortage of valid therapeutic interventions to effectively respond to anxious thoughts, but one powerful method is to conceptualize your anxiety as a prognosticator (or use your word/name of choice: forecaster, fortune-teller, Nostradamus, etc.). If you think back on all your anxious predictions, how often do they actually come true? How many times has something gone “much better than I thought it would” or at least “wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought”?. For most people struggling with anxiety, their anxiety has a terrible track record in terms of accuracy, and therefore makes a poor prognosticator of the future.
The next step is to actually keep a written track record of your anxious predictions and compare them with how they actually turned out. It can be extraordinarily helpful to literally “check the record” the next time you notice your mind making an anxious prediction, that can quickly neutralize your anxious thinking right there. I also give the option on the form to “reframe” the anxiety-based prediction into a thought/interpretation that’s more balanced/reasonable/helpful (reframing negative thoughts is a common method of dealing with thoughts, but for this worksheet I tell clients they can skip this step if they’d like). See below for two examples on the track record:
Steps for completing the track record:
Note the date of the anxious thought
Write down your anxiety-based prediction
Optional step: reframe the anxious prediction into a more balanced/neutral (not necessarily positive) thought
Write down what actually occurred
I often tell clients that it can be helpful to write down the anxious thoughts as they occur and they can always write down the actual outcome after the anticipated event has occurred. E.g. if you’re making anxious, negative predictions about an upcoming annual performance review at work, you wouldn’t be able to complete step 4 until after the performance review is done, but you could do steps #1-3 until then!
I often ask clients questions like “if your anxiety was a weatherperson, would they be able to hold a job? Would you listen to an economic forecaster that was wrong the vast majority of the time?”. Clients usually say “no”, but it can be very easy to forget this realization when you step out of the therapy office! This is where the track record tool can be handy: the next time you’re anxious, it can be very helpful to consult your track record and realize that your anxiety doesn’t have, well, a great track record. Consulting your track record can help you see your anxious thoughts and just that–thoughts, not cast-in-stone, accurate forecasts of the future. Once you realize this, it makes it easier to stop ruminating (or as I say, “get out of your own head”) and start engaging in what you’re doing more fully, instead of being only partially present and engaged.
I usually suggest to clients that they keep their anxious predictions record as a live document, either via cloud storage (so they can update/access it from any of their devices) or as a running, written record. This is an ongoing exercise that you can continually use for long as you find it helpful.
There could very well be several occasions where your anxious prediction is right on the money! That’s to be expected, if nothing else, because of the law of averages. Side note: if your anxiety is correct in its predictions more often than not, then I would question if you have an anxiety disorder or issue with an anxiety at all! In fact, that could be a sign that significant changes need to occur in your life (e.g. ending toxic relationships, leaving a job that’s burning you out, etc.). I often hear from clients that they find it prudent to constantly prepare for the worst (there’s a reason “hope for the best, prepare for the worst” is a common idiom), that way they’re “always prepared” and “never disappointed”. The downside to this approach is that there are significant costs to constantly preparing and thinking about negative outcomes, e.g. prolonged and/or increased stress, difficulty being present and fully engaging with whatever you’re doing, worse sleep, increased distractibility, etc. Most people find it difficult to live their lives like a sort of doomsday prepper, constantly prepping for doomsday scenarios “just in case”.
Additional tip: the use of distancing language can be quite helpful when experiencing anxious thoughts, e.g. “I think my parents will cause a lot of drama at the wedding” can become “my anxiety is saying my parents will cause a lot of drama at the wedding”. “I’m going to bomb at this work presentation” can become “my prognosticator is saying I’m going to bomb this work presentation”. This helps us step outside our thoughts and emotions and observe them, rather than being wrapped up inside of them. This sort of language framing is a common practice in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy/ACT.
If you found this technique helpful, or want to learn more ways to effectively respond to and manage your anxiety or other issues, please reach out to David today to start your therapy journey today! Click here to look for open appointments for a free, 30-minute consultation.
