You may not realize that a fear of the future can affect whether you set goals, how you work toward them and your ultimate success in achieving them. Goals and the future have a symbiotic relationship. Goals help you deal with the future and how you see the future affects your goals. It’s important that while you should have an eye on the future, you don’t forget to live in the present. Don’t let worrying about your future hold you back.
One of the ways to overcome your fear of the future is to live your life at as slow a pace as you are personally comfortable with. Once you get to a certain age, societal expectations tend to take over and you begin comparing yourself with other women in your age range, but all people are different and it does no good for your fears to try to keep up with a friend or colleague who is walking a different path. Embrace the pace that you enjoy; the slower the pace, the less chance of nasty surprises around the corner.
A person can become very fearful if they feel that their life is out of their control and in the hands of some sort of higher power or fate. I’m not necessarily talking about religion and faith, but more about believing things like the alignments of stars can have a direct impact on your life. Star signs and horoscopes can be a fun distraction, but if you start to rely on them too heavily, you can become afraid of the outcome.
Constantly thinking about the consequences of the future in your life can feel like a horrible ticking time bomb inside your head, and that isn’t healthy at all. Instead of obsessing over things that have not yet happened, try to focus your energy on the present moment. You will find that this time bomb begins to quieten because your thoughts are on things that you can affect rather than things that you are waiting for.
A person can become stuck both physically and emotionally if they sit around waiting for the future to happen rather than doing things in the present to affect the outcome. In your fear of the future, you may have forgotten than it can be perfectly planned out depending on what you do with your life in this present moment.
Oftentimes, a fear of the future stems from a fear of the unknown, and a great way to train your body and mind to embrace the unknown is to break out of your comfort zones in the present and test yourself in a number of different and varied ways. This could be anything from booking a foreign holiday for the first time or even going on a sky dive. Doing these out of comfort zone things will help you to see that the unknown isn’t just filled with dread.
You need to try to train your mind in to thinking about things in a more positive manner. The perfect example of this is to stop thinking about the glass as half empty and start thinking about it as half full.
Yoga is still as popular today as it was five and ten years ago, and the reason for this is because it was of the best forms of exercise for strengthening not only your body but also your mind. Yoga is excellent at remedying some of the more physical signs of fear as well, like muscle tension and pain.
Instead of fearing and worrying about what could possibly happen in the future, whether distant or not, start accepting whatever comes your way. Think of the worst possible scenario for any situation and prepare for it because then when reality does happen, it probably won't be THAT bad, and if it is, at least you started to prep for it mentally.
Take a step back on your life and think about what really matters. Is it friends? Is it family? Be extremely grateful for the present you have with them because in a mere instant those special people can be taken from you. Do not take your time with them for granted.
We may be fearful of the future because we're afraid to let go of the past. We've had such good things happen we don't want to move past them; and we've had horrible things happen that are chaining us to our past. Let go of grudges and everything else negative so you can move forward into the future on a clean slate-just be sure to take all those good memories with you so maybe you can expand or relive them! :)
To not fear the future you need self belief and confidence that enables you to set clear goals. It’s an area we could all do with being better at, probably. What are your thoughts?