Focus on What You Can Control (and Let the Rest Wait)

Most worries are a tangle: things you can act on and things you can only wait for, all knotted together. As long as they stay mixed up, you feel responsible for everything and powerless at the same time. Pulling them apart is one of the simplest, most useful things you can do to lighten the load.

Two kinds of worry

In its self-help guidance, the NHS suggests telling apart two kinds of worry:

• Practical worries: about a current problem you can do something about. A bill to pay, an email to answer, an appointment to book.
• Hypothetical worries: "what if…?" scenarios, often about the future, that you don’t really control. "What if I get ill?", "What if they leave me?"

For practical worries, the NHS recommends making a concrete plan: what you’ll do, how and when. For hypothetical ones, it suggests acknowledging that you can’t control them and shifting your focus, rather than chasing them.

In real life, though, a single worry often contains both. That’s exactly where separating them pays off.

A real-life example

Take this worry: "I had a job interview and I’m scared they won’t call me back."

What you can only wait for:

• the company’s decision;
• what the interviewers think of you;
• how many other candidates there are.

What’s up to you:

• sending a short thank-you note;
• jotting down what went well and what you’d do differently;
• keeping other applications going in the meantime.

Seeing the two lists side by side changes how it feels. The part that isn’t up to you is still uncertain, but it’s no longer the whole problem. And the part that is up to you becomes a short list of doable things.

Why concrete beats abstract

A review by Edward Watkins (2008) on repetitive thinking found that dwelling on something can be helpful or harmful depending, in part, on how abstract or concrete that thinking is. Abstract questions ("Why does this happen to me?", "What does this mean for my future?") tend to spin in place. Concrete ones ("What can I do right now?") are more likely to help you plan and move on.

Asking "what’s actually in my control here?" is a simple way to move from the abstract to the concrete.

And the part you can’t control?

This is often the hardest bit. It’s not about pretending you don’t care. It’s about recognising that, for now, your job is to wait.

It can help to remember that anxious predictions often don’t come true. In a study by LaFreniere and Newman (2020), 29 people with generalized anxiety disorder logged their worries and then checked what happened: 91.4% of the predictions did not come true. It’s a small, specific sample, but it suggests giving fear a little less credit than it asks for.

You can’t decide the outcome. You can decide the next step, and when to look again.

Try it: the two-column exercise

You’ll need paper, your phone or the Allay Vault, and about 15 minutes.

1. Write the worry in one sentence. Make it concrete, with a who and, if there is one, a when.
2. Draw two columns. On the left, "Up to me". On the right, "I can only wait".
3. Fill in the right-hand column first. It’s often the heavier one, and writing it down helps you see it for what it is.
4. Fill in the left-hand column. Small things count too: asking a question, preparing, getting some rest.
5. Circle one step. Choose an item from the left column you can do in 15 minutes or less, and decide when.
6. Pick a date to come back to it. When will there be something new to know? Put it in your calendar.
7. On that date, review. Did what you feared happen? It didn’t; it did and you handled it; it was hard; or it’s still open?

If the left-hand column is empty

Sometimes it feels like nothing is up to you. Try zooming in further: you can still decide how you treat yourself while you wait. Sleeping, eating, reaching out to someone, going for a walk. All of those are in your control.

You can also share the thought anonymously in the Allay Garden. A few kind words or a different point of view can make the waiting feel less lonely.

When to ask for help

If a worry has been with you for weeks, is keeping you up at night, or is getting in the way of work and daily life, talk to your doctor or a psychologist. If you have thoughts of harming yourself, reach out right away to someone you trust or a professional. If you’re in danger, call your local emergency number.