A fear of your future can affect many areas of life – your job and your relationships.
Fears about your future can even trigger depression.
What can you do when that fear paralyzes you and worries take over?
Many people’s fear of the future does not only affect politics and society, but also in the private life.
- Fear of old age and then needing care,
- financial fear of the future
- fear of the future at work
- Fears about the future in the partnership
Persistent fear and Anxiety can have serious health consequences.
So what can you do about your fear of the future so that fear does not rule and affect your whole life?
What is fear of the future?
Fear of the future describes the fear of things that are yet to come and you have no control over.
It is often a negative spiral that paralyzes you. The question “What if…?” goes through the mind.
The mind often paints a worst-case scenario and you look to the future with concern.
It is often difficult to make decisions because you are afraid of making the wrong decision and of the consequences that the decision made today will have in the future.
Fear of the future can lead to depression
In many cases, fears about the future go hand in hand with low self-confidence.
Because if you don’t believe in your own abilities and your own strength, you don’t believe in being able to deal with what awaits you in the future either.
You tend to give up earlier because they expect their efforts to fail.
In the worst case, you fall into depression because of their fear of the future.
Other fear of the future symptoms include:
- Hours of worrying
- Pessimistic attitude
- Insomnia
- inner restlessness
- You only think about the future and forget about the present
- the feeling of helplessness
- a racing heart
You have to see when fear is good and when it turns negative.
For example, if you are standing on the street and a bus is coming towards you, your fear will help you to act correctly in this situation.
However, if you are at a change in your life – regardless of whether you change jobs or move, the fear is often based on pressure of expectations, fear of failure.
In order to learn to deal with the fear of the future, you should first clarify where the fear comes from.
Overcoming fears about the future: What to do when fears become too big?
The most important thing when you are afraid of the future is to relax.
It is important that you do something against your stress and for your relaxation.
Either way, you have to actively change something, because if you want a different result, you have to go a different way.
You have to realize that both the fear and the courage to take action or change begins in your mind. Changing something and getting out of the negative spiral of fears about the future is ultimately a decision that you have to make for yourself.
To get started, this might can help:
- Write down fears and worries.
- What thoughts keep coming up?
- What can you do about it?
Set e a time window during the day in which you want to deal with problems and their solution.
The rest of the day is a pause for that thought.
It is also important to work on your attitude and to build up your own self-confidence.
Think about your strengths and what you have accomplished so far.
Think about how grateful you are.
If you stick to it, you will look to the future with much more confidence and believe in yourself and your abilities.
It also helps to always put the fear of the upcoming situation in perspective.
So always ask yourself whether the situation you are afraid of is actually a horror scenario or maybe only half as bad.
Finally, it is important to live in the “here and now”, to enjoy the moment and to have your fears under control.
Develop a basic trust in life and the future.
Trust in life make it easier.