If you’re like most people, the future can be a scary place. You may worry about things that haven’t happened yet, this can lead to a lot of anxiety and fear. This is known as fear of the future (anticipatory anxiety). If this is something you struggle with, it’s important to first understand that you’re not alone.
There are ways to overcome fear in your daily life, and in this post, we will discuss some of the best ways I know to keep your mental health in a good place.
What is Anticipatory Anxiety (Fear of The Future)?
The technical term for a fear of the future is typically known as ” anticipatory anxiety.” This is a type of disorder that can cause a lot of problems and makes a lot of people struggle.
Those who suffer from anxiety often worry about things that haven’t even happened yet, and this can result in a lot of stress of course.
Don’t worry, you’re not alone.
There are different types of anxiety that hurt your mental health, but all of them share one common theme:
- Fear.
Act In Spite of Your Fear
Fear and anxiety about the future can be debilitating, we know that. However, it’s important to understand the idea/fact that…You are not your fears.
What this means is, you don’t have to behave in a way that you’re “expected to” whenever you are fearful of the future or ANYTHING for that matter. So if you typically sit there with your head spinning, all you have to do is deliberately do something that you wouldn’t typically do if you were in the state of being fearful. This is important for your mental health.
Here’s an example:
Let’s say I’m going through the motions of my anxiety of fear of the future and future events. What I would typically do, is find a “safe place” where nobody could see me if possible in order to avoid any attention during this time.
Now, here’s what I should do instead…
Acknowledge that emotion immediately, then go right back into whatever it was that you were doing prior.
Why would that work?
You’re breaking the loop that the anxious thoughts want to start. Acknowledging the fear lets your brain know that you don’t have to guess why you’re feeling this way anymore, which allows the feeling to pass 100x quicker without having time for a panic attack.
Doing something else such as continuing on with your day, tells your mind that this is not a thing that needs to be looked into any further, which takes its control off of you and gives you better control of your mental health.
Checkout this post on how to act in spite of fear more in depth here.
Acknowledge Your Fear And The Fear Goes Away
If you fully understand what it is I’m about to share with you, most of your fear will start to disappear seemingly overnight.
This is a huge reason why I personally don’t have much anxiety and worry anymore, and I would recommend this even to my worst enemy. This was one of my top 5 realizations on being happy.
As previously briefed on…
Acknowledging a thought of fear and worry with honesty, whether it’s about the future or not, will make it disappear.
It’s important to ask questions and right about now you may be asking yourself “how could this possibly help my fear of the future” and you’d be smart to ask that, so let me explain with an example.
Let’s say
There’s a book that you’re told to read for class. You pick the book up and begin reading, only, there’s not much light in the bedroom that you are trying to read the book in so you can’t fully make out all of the words, only a few.
You’re able to note that it’s hard to make out some of the words, however, you’re not too sure why, all you are focused on is getting through this book because you know that it’s important.
You finish the book and head to class, but, you start to feel a lot of anxiety and worry because you feel like you can’t remember too much of what was read.
Now you’re worried about what the teacher is going to say and you may possibly fail and everyone’s going to make fun of you and… fill in the blank.
Now, This is Important
The reason our character started to spin out of control with anxiety and/or panic attacks was because of one simple thing that they failed to do…
They didn’t acknowledge the issue
Had this individual acknowledged the issue (in this care, darkness in the room obstructing the vision of the words) all of that future fear and worry that later followed could have been avoided.
And with this same technique, you can defeat your anxiety as soon as it enters your mind. If you are thinking about the future that lies ahead and that which makes you fearful… simply state this in your head:
“I noticed that I’m thinking about where my life is headed and that typically makes me fearful”
By simply doing this, you cut the pattern your mind would usually assume in order to run this thoughts’ course.
Keep a Journal To Prove Yourself Wrong
Knowing that you’re growing is the best way to make you want to grow more and reduce the stress and fear in your everyday life. Check out my journaling journey here.
This means if you fail to take note of the small wins and changes that current you have made to better your life, you won’t know if you’re doing better at all.
Writing down your day as your day happens doesn’t leave you with much time to think and worry about the future or anything else for that matter. What matters is the obstacles in front of you right now and how you plan to conquer them, everything else will just fall into place.
Here’s the best way to start journaling your thoughts and progress to rid yourself of fear of the future thinking:
- Date
- What I achieved today
- How I felt throughout the day
- What I’d like to improve on today
The more you work on bettering the day in front of you, the less effort you give to focusing on a future that isn’t even real. You become an active player in your own life and positive mental health and it starts to feel amazing the more you better yourself and accomplish goals.
“The point of power is always in the present moment” -Louise L Hay
Say Your Fears Out Loud to Someone Who Won’t Judge
It’s important that you find someone like this for your mental health’s sake.
All that you might be missing in order to rid your fears entirely right now, could be that you need to say what you’ve been feeling for all these years (however long) out loud to someone. This is talk therapy.
This is cliche to people, therefore they don’t deem it important or real. Please allow me to explain to you the importance behind this.
In your head, you make yourself go crazy with the potential extreme fear you have throughout the day and it’s quite easy to feel anxious.
The reason behind this is because deep down you’re not really sure if it’s normal to have these thoughts and are afraid that someone is going to tell you that you have a problem.
But here’s the thing!
This is specifically why therapists and counselors are a thing, to reassure you with multiple relaxation techniques that you are not crazy and that you are able to help yourself… only if you are willing to speak what it is that is bothering you.
Now
Friends that won’t judge you and will take what it is you have to say seriously… are tough for anyone to find.
In fact, I would highly recommend this not be a friend that you decide to share information like this with until later in the future when you know they won’t alter your happiness.
Luckily, there are plenty of different avenues in this day and age that you can take to help your anxiety disorders. A few examples would be:
- Betterhelp
- In-person therapist
- Zoom 1 on 1 counseling
- Talkspace
- Phone & messaging
- etc
Intentionally Bring Attention to The Present Moment
This can be difficult to do when you’re in the middle of your anticipatory anxiety “crisis”, but thankfully, that’s not the best time to practice being in the present moment anyway!
Practice bringing awareness to your breathing as often as you wish. Especially when you are doing deep breathing exercises, or meditation.
You can be sitting in the car driving to work, just simply noticing your breath or your arm or whatever it is you want to bring focus to at that moment.
This is important because it reminds you that you are HERE NOW. On top of that, it allows you to realize that you are not your thoughts and emotions… you are an observer of those things both mental and physical, in the present… not the future.
Important to Understand
The present is all you have and all there ever will be, the past and future fear are both illusions that will cause unwanted increased anxiety.
Now, one may argue that the past is most certainly not an illusion however, you only truly remember the memorable parts of it. And with those memorable parts… you amplify the emotion associated with it in your head.
Like when you were a kid in school and you absolutely loved hanging out with Johnny and he was so awesome every time you guys would hang out, you remember happy feelings!
Yet, most of the time you actually found him very annoying due to his temperament and that was the reason you guys stopped hanging out in the first place…
Or when you think about it, and you actually really loved art class so much and how awesome that was too and you’re sad it’s over with!
Until you remember yourself telling the teacher you were sick and would hang out in the bathroom until class was over, from the very beginning…
Closing
You’re not an outcast.
There’s nothing wrong with you.
You’re not a terrible person.
You’re not alone with your struggles.
No matter where you are in your life right now, where you were in the past, your previous mental health problems, your current health conditions, your anticipatory anxiety, whatever…
You can always change your mental state and you can always completely change your life. Please understand and remember that.
You don’t have to go on feeling overly fearful and anxious, in fact…
You can change everything about how you view and deal with fears starting right now and forever alter your attitude on it.
I highly recommend starting this journey to working on yourself, because you’ll never want to quit once you get a taste of life without the constant worry.
Thank you for reading.
Love you,
Mason