What If It All Goes Right?
We are professionals at disaster.
Give most of us a stressful situation and we’ll run the worst-case scenario in full HD… every conversation that goes wrong, every deal that falls through, every version of tomorrow where it all falls apart. We rehearse it. We refine it. We give it hours.
I hate to admit it, but this is true, even for me. I had a conversation with my coach this week that made me notice something about myself. When I’m stressed or worried about something, I can become very good at predicting the future.
Except somehow, lately all of my predictions are terrible. 😂
My brain was taking one fact and building an entire disaster movie around it.
What if this doesn’t work?
What if the money doesn’t come in?
What if I made the wrong decision?
What if things get worse?
And before I know it, I’m mentally living in a future that hasn’t even happened yet.
Maybe you do this too.
We call it worrying. Sometimes we even call it “being realistic” or “thinking things through.”
But here’s what occurred to me:
If I’m going to spend time imagining a future that hasn’t happened yet, shouldn’t I at least give the other possibility equal airtime?
What if it works?
What if the opportunity comes?
What if the thing I’m worried about resolves itself in a way I couldn’t have predicted?
What if six months from now I look back and realize this season was actually leading me somewhere?
What if it all goes right?
That doesn’t mean ignoring reality or pretending everything is wonderful when it isn’t.
It means remembering that the worst-case scenario is still just one possible story.
There are still MANY other stories available.
My coach gave me a question this week that I love:
What are the other possibilities?
Not the other possibility.
The other possibilities.
Because when we’re anxious, our thinking gets narrow. We see one path, one outcome, one ending.
But life rarely unfolds exactly the way we predict it will.
So this week, I’m practicing something different.
When I catch myself disasterizing the future, I’m going to let myself tell the whole story.
Yes, this could go wrong.
And it could also go right.
Maybe even better than I imagined.
Your Thought Drop
Pay attention to the future you’re rehearsing in your head.
If you notice yourself writing the ending before you’ve lived the middle, ask:
What story am I telling myself?
How much of that story is actually true right now?
What are the other possibilities?
And maybe most importantly:
What if it all goes right?
You don’t have to believe that it will.
Just give that possibility equal airtime.
Because if you’re going to imagine the future, you might as well remember that something wonderful could be waiting there, too.