How to Stop Catastrophizing · Brojo: Confidence & Integrity

How to Stop Catastrophizing

Catastrophizing is the word we use to describe getting stuck in your head imagining horrible outcomes for the future that are probably not going to happen. While they feel very reasonable, real, and likely when you’re drowning in these negative fantasies, statistically they’re extremely unlikely.

This is not the same as planning for possible setbacks. There is no real planning happening here, just imagining disastrous consequences, with no thought given to how you’d actually handle these possibilities and survive them.

So you know you’re catastrophizing when you’re

a) imagining terrible futures,

b) focusing on least likely outcomes more than most likely, and

c) you’re not planning how to successfully navigate these things if they do happen.

Why does this happen?

Catastrophizing is a kind of mental misfire; an error in your brain’s code. It’s the combination of anxiety with imagination and hyper-fixation on threats.

From an early age, or following some significant trauma, you got into a habit of worrying about worst case scenarios. The simple fact of repeating this process also validates it and reinforces it, so that nowadays you catastrophize simply because you always catastrophize. You’re somewhat addicted to indulging these negative fantasies.

This unhelpful and pointless process occurs because deep down you don’t trust yourself, and you don’t trust the universe. You don’t believe you can handle unexpected things going wrong, and you assume bad things are more likely to happen than good things. So you’re left worrying about bad things happening and not being able to handle them.

Your brain seems to believe that imagining things going devastatingly wrong, over and over, will somehow protect you from them. And yet, you never actually problem-solve. You only imagine the outcome, never your response to it.

So catastrophizing feels important and necessary, even unavoidable, and yet it provides no value. You just sit there worrying and panicking, and it does not lead to improvement in your skills, helpful problem-solving, or better reactions to setbacks.

Worst of all, the likelihood of what you worry about happening is so low and you don’t spend time preparing for outcomes that are far more likely to happen. This means you end up being unprepared despite imagining the event for hours. This reinforces the “I can’t handle things going wrong” narrative, because you waste time preparing for things that don’t happen and so end up failing often.

See the truth

If you really did want to prepare for the future, you wouldn’t be catastrophizing. Instead, you’d enter a kind of probability trance, an assessment where you map out the different possible outcomes, rank them according to likelihood, and then engage in planning and problem-solving to minimize risk.

This would feel empowering, and would often prove to be useful. So it’s important to notice the difference between rational planning and catastrophizing. One is sane, the other is quite insane.

Rational planning would look like practicing responses to potential job interview questions. Catastrophizing would be just imagining yourself getting humiliated during the interview and then never getting a job and ending up homeless.

Rational planning would look like preparing a range of options for different possible weather conditions on your wedding day. Catastrophizing would be fretting and panicking that you’re going to get rained out and your one chance at happiness would be ruined.

You have to let go of the idea that catastrophizing is helpful. It is not. It’s just pointless suffering.

And you have to embrace the even more difficult truth: you don’t have to do it.

Catastrophizing is a choice

While the initial worrying thoughts will arise without you having any control over them, and anxiety can come up without warning, this does not mean you have to start catastrophizing. If you don’t entertain and indulge in such thoughts, they remain just thoughts. It’s when you engage them that they become catastrophizing.

If you worry about the future but refuse to plan how you’re going to deal with it, that’s a choice.

If you deliberately indulge in fantasies about bad things that are very unlikely to happen instead of redirecting your focus towards the most likely outcomes, that’s a choice.

If you refuse to acknowledge evidence that things aren’t as bad as they seem, or evidence that you often successfully handle things going wrong, that’s a choice.

Your brain is just indulging in old familiar patterns. It’s not trying to protect you. More like it’s short-circuiting. It’s an error in the code.

You must resist indulging it.

You must let go of your petty desire to pity yourself and play out the “life’s not fair” story you secretly love so much. You must refuse to identify as the useless person who can’t handle things going wrong, because if that was actually true you wouldn’t be alive right now.

Turn it around

To deal with this, there are a few key steps.

Firstly, you must write it all down. Trying to deal with it inside your head leaves you victim to your imagination. Once you write it down, it’s much harder to take extreme ideas so seriously. Thinking “I will end up homeless” feels scary and real; seeing it written down it suddenly appears overly dramatic.

Once all your fears are written out, you need to start ranking them according to likelihood. Rate them from most to least likely to happen. And add the more positive possible outcomes that you haven’t yet acknowledged.

If you’ve never been homeless before despite going through ups and downs, then it must be ranked as almost 0% likelihood. And if every time you’ve lost your job you managed to find another one within a few weeks, then finding another job should be ranked close to 100% likelihood.

Then, come up with a response to every single one of the potential disasters. “If [outcome] happens… then I will [hepful response]”. Instead of just stopping at the thought of something going wrong, imagine the successful solution you will implement and write it down. Come up with back up plans, pivots, and a list of potential supporters.

Even do it for the extremes. “If I end up homeless… then I’ll ask to move in with my parents, try to get on welfare, and start looking for entry level jobs”. Do not allow any potential scenario to go unaddressed.

The key is in repetition. Do this exercise EVERY time you catastrophize. This is brain-training: you’re re-conditioning yourself to practice problem-solving when you worry, instead of fantasizing.

Finally, one big exercise I suggest doing is writing down as many memories you can of you solving difficult problems.

By “solving” I don’t mean you had the perfect response. More that you’re still alive so you must have gotten through it somehow.

All those “mistakes” your brain punishes you with – missed opportunities, laziness, divorce, saying stupid things etc. – how are you still going if these were indeed disasters? You must have gotten through those upsets somehow. Write this down: hard evidence that you bounce back and keep going no matter what life does to you.

And list all your achievements. From eating breakfast through to getting a promotion. Remind yourself that you must be doing OK if you’re still alive. You must get it right more often than you get it wrong.

This is mostly about resisting your addiction to catastrophizing; your tendency to wallow in self-pity and call it “planning”. If you want to be confident, you’ll have to sacrifice this martyrdom and admit that you can handle things and you’ll probably be fine.

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How to Stop Catastrophizing