Why You Create Scary Scenarios in Advance

Have you ever noticed yourself having a conversation that hasn’t actually taken place yet? Or found yourself on the way to an important meeting, having already imagined ten possible outcomes? Perhaps you recognise thoughts like:

“What if they ask a critical question?”

“What if they don’t understand me and become upset or disappointed?”

“What if this project fails?”

Many of the people I speak to are surprisingly good at this. Within minutes, their minds can construct all sorts of future situations, complete with potential problems and solutions. It often feels like preparation. As if you are gaining control over what lies ahead. My own mind is rather fond of it too!

But why is it that, after all that thinking, we often end up feeling even more unsettled? More often than not, it isn’t actually that helpful.

Psychology tells us that our brains are not particularly fond of uncertainty. Researchers even refer to intolerance of uncertainty: the tendency to experience uncertainty as uncomfortable or threatening. When we do not know exactly what is going to happen, the mind tries to fill in the gaps. It makes predictions, identifies risks, and simulates possible future scenarios.

In itself, there is nothing wrong with that. Healthy forward thinking helps us plan, prepare, and prevent problems. It becomes more difficult when preparation turns into endless scenario-building. The question then shifts from “What can I do?” to “What could possibly go wrong?” And there is rarely an end to that.

Within Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), this is seen as a self-reinforcing cycle. Imagine you have to give a presentation next week. A thought arises, such as “What if I freeze?” That thought creates tension or uncertainty. To reduce that tension, you begin constructing scenarios. You mentally rehearse different situations and try to find answers to all of them in advance.

For a moment, this feels reassuring. But then your mind comes up with another scenario. And another. Before long, you are no longer preparing for one presentation, but for fifty imaginary presentations that will probably never take place. And most of these imagined presentations are far from pleasant experiences. So what happens to your anxiety? Rather than decreasing, it actually grows.

Adrian Wells’ metacognitive theory offers an interesting explanation for this. Many people hold unconscious beliefs that thinking ahead helps them prepare better. That it is sensible to map out every possible risk. And that if they stopped thinking, they might overlook something important. As a result, scenario-thinking feels wise and responsible.

Meanwhile, however, the brain is learning something else. Every time you try to think uncertainty away, you unintentionally reinforce the idea that uncertainty is dangerous. This keeps the production of new scenarios going. Not because they are helping, but because your mind is trying to create a sense of safety. Unfortunately, that sense of calm and security often seems to drift even further out of reach.

The difference between healthy preparation and worrying is often not the amount of thinking involved, but the outcome. Preparation usually leads to action. You make a plan. You rehearse a conversation. You gather information. And then you are finished.

Worrying usually leads to more thinking. You keep adding possibilities. You continue analysing risks. And that is precisely where the mind gets stuck. Because the future can never be predicted with complete certainty.

I recognise this in myself as well. Next week, I will be delivering my inaugural lecture as a professor. Over the past few weeks, my mind has effortlessly played out countless versions of the event. I hear myself saying things that make no sense. I imagine myself falling off the stage. Or I convince myself that I will inevitably become seriously ill that day and have to cancel. None of this is particularly helpful when it comes to keeping pre-event nerves at a healthy level.

Fortunately, this is exactly one of the things we explore within the Clarity Process. We do not focus on the content of all those scenarios (because they will continue to appear anyway), but on the mechanism behind them. Once you begin to see that your mind is doing this automatically, without it saying anything meaningful about reality, a little more space and ease often emerges.

What helps me is realising that, in those moments, my mind is not actually occupied with the event itself. It is occupied with avoiding uncertainty. That insight changes something every time. I do not have to push the horror scenarios away. I simply need to recognise them for what they are: an attempt by my brain to gain control over something that does not yet exist. And that realisation often brings more peace than creating yet another scenario ever could.

Most of the scenarios we imagine never happen.

And when something unexpected does occur, we usually discover that we are far better able to deal with it in the moment than our worrying mind had predicted beforehand.

If you notice yourself working through all sorts of future situations, try the following:

1. Stop analysing for a moment.
2. Ask yourself: “Am I preparing right now, or am I predicting?”
3. Notice what is happening in your body.
4. Take a slow breath in and out.
5. Say to yourself: “I do not need to live through the future in advance in order to cope with it.”

Because true peace of mind does not come from predicting the future. It comes from trusting that you can handle whatever arises when the future actually arrives.