Are you a person prone to overthinking about your future?

Then I am sure you do not have a moment of peace. Most of you keep imagining many things about your future. There is nothing wrong in it.

After all, your future life is very important to you. You can only be happy if your future is worthwhile to you.

But the sad thing about your imagination is that you do it the wrong way.

You either imagine worst things happening to you in your future, or you are smug enough to think that your present success is a permanent feature in your future life also.

Both your imagination is wrong.

You should never be smug about your future and you should never be pessimistic about it also.

Yes!

It is true that most you always assume the worst happening to you in your future life.

“My present defeats will continue into my future.”

“I will never succeed in my life”.

“I will never see the light of my life.”

“I will continue facing defeats as of now.”

Can you see how overthinking about your future makes you have pessimistic thoughts about it?

This attitude destroys your mental peace and crushes your confidence.

Why do you always assume the worst happening to you in your future?

Most of you feel unnerved by your present failures. You are depressed by the continuous rebuffs and rejections you face. You feel miserable when you have to eat out of your hand in spite of working hard.

You take your wretched present life right into your future. You become so cowed down by your unhappy present that you start overthinking about your future. The more you think about your future, the more terrified you become about it.

My experience about overthinking about my future.

I too was once a culprit of imagining worst things happening to me in my future.

Some few years ago, my life was a traumatic disaster of having no money even for my basics. To add more misery to my plight my husband fell sick.

When I lost my husband, I felt that the happiness in my life had ended. Whenever I visualized my future, all I could see was darkness around me.

I took my present drudgery too much to heart and spent sleepless nights overthinking about my dark future. I thought my future would remain as bleak as my present life.

I thought that the financial debacle I was suffering then was going to last forever. I assumed fearfully that my future also would be as unproductive and fruitless as my present was.

How naïve I was to have such miserable thoughts about my future?

I never knew that my present life will have no place in my future.

When being confident was the only option before me, I geared myself to concentrate on making my present life worthwhile and valuable.

As I struggled and swam across my troubles, I finally realized that if I took care of my present, my future will take care of itself.

I thanked God for stopping me from having disastrous hallucinations about my future life. If I had frozen with fear and anxiety about my wretched present, I would have done nothing for my future.

After several torrid years of sufferings, here I am with my days of financial debacle a thing of my past. My life is not as barren as I thought it would be.

Why overthinking about your future might be bad for you?

Many of you feel that should plan for your future. And it is quite true. Without planning, you might not live your future life fruitfully.

But if you dwell too much on your future, you fail to see your present in its proper perspective.

There are two ways you predict your future life.

The smug overthinking about your future life.

If you are successful in your present life, you become complacent and smug. You imagine your future life as being as sunny and as without problems as of now.

Your present success makes you so smug that you feel you will be successful forever.

Your mind tells you that since you are successful now, you will be successful tomorrow also. The thought of your future looks bright and encouraging as your mind links your present well-being to your future well-being.

This is where most of you fail.

Your thoughts become over enthusiastic by your futuristic prophecy of continuing success. So, you fail to see the things you should do in your present life to make your success a definite feature in your future life also. You stop improvising and updating your knowledge.

You can never be more wrong.

You must improvise your knowledge and become innovative in putting forth your work in a new dimension.

Otherwise, you will lose out to the next generation who will be far advanced in knowledge and technology than you are.

You must update your expertise. You must have your feet firmly grounded to encounter competition. This is the only rule to pave way for your successful future.

Can you see how overthinking about your future life in a smug way is bad for you?

The negative manner of overthinking about your future.

If overthinking about your future is bad for you, imagining your gloomy future is also bad.

Yes!

There is another category of people who take their present sufferings right into their future.

When you are undergoing trouble in your work or relationship, you feel it will always continue to trouble you in your future also. You feel there is no way out of it.

You become depressed and gloomy about your miserable present and paint your future life to be wretched and unhappy. Your present failures makes you think that you will not be successful in your future also.

These bleak thoughts become embedded in your mind. And naturally you lose your clarity to look at things that need to be done to overcome your present calamity.

Life is uncertain. There is no permanence to anything in this world. Nothing can last forever, be it your happiness or your troubles.

If you are suffering in the present, it just means you have to find a way out of it to enjoy a bright future.

So, do not take your present sufferings meekly. If you do so, your future will be rubber stamped as a failure.

Your success might be just a few yards away. If you do not take the first step, you are not going to take the subsequent steps necessary for your entry into a successful future.

Conclusion

“People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.” – George Orwell.

Smug and complacent outlook towards future is as bad as a negative attitude towards it. Your rosy outlook makes you lose insight of the things to be done in the present to sustain your future success.

Negative imagination about a bleak future makes you meek and submissive and you do not take any actions to make you climb out of your present mishaps.

Your thoughts should be focused on your present and actions should be aimed to make your future a success. And the only way to do it to stop overthinking about your future.

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 [MS1]