I have spent a significant amount of my lifetime thus far worrying about potential situations that I need to fix. I have lain awake at night contemplating how to handle future possible problems. Conversations have been practiced and emails drafted in my head handling uncomfortable scenarios.
For many years I have fed myself the lie that it’s good I do this. I’m being prepared.
I started doing a lot of this preemptive problem solving when Anika was just about to start remote learning this school year. Listing everything that could go wrong and coming up with all the ways I could fix it. What I would say, what I would do. I stressed myself out. A lot. Stressed myself out so much I think something broke a little bit inside me in a good way. I finally just stopped and told myself…
Stop trying to solve a problem until there is one Nikki.
Until this moment it had never occurred to me that perhaps this wasn’t the only way to live. That I could just chill out and deal with actual problems when they arrived instead of trying to preemptively extinguish potential ones. Because how often do those issues actually end up occurring? Not much and if they did all that preparing didn’t always end up being that helpful.
I’m still a work in progress with this. Old habits die hard. But I’ve started to relax a little bit around the future problem solving lately…
And you know what? It’s been lovely.
Preemptive worrying strangled me for years. My secret problem. But like you, I’ve made big strides in overcoming it and responsibly dealing wit it on those rare occasions it insists on popping up now. Thanks for sharing your story
It’s so tough at first. The first step for me was even realizing I was doing it. Happy to hear you have such a good handle on it now. Gives me encouragement. I’m getting there! So much better than I ever was.