You don’t have to prepare for every possibility.

Something I often notice in therapy is how much time people spend trying to prepare for situations that haven’t happened yet.

I understand the pull to do this. As a trainee therapist, I could spend hours thinking through hypothetical situations a client might face. I would investigate the possibilities and enjoy solving problems that were not actually happening.

Then the client would come to see me, and I would realise that my brilliant breakthrough related to a situation I had created in my own head. It was not what was happening for them at all.

Eventually, I stopped trying to predict where everything might go and focused on what was actually in front of me.

Worry can draw us into something similar. We prepare for conversations that have not happened and try to decide how we will cope with circumstances that do not yet exist. AI can give us even more possible meanings, responses and outcomes to explore.

It can feel like a step towards certainty, but we are trying to find clarity without the information a real situation would give us. There is always another possibility to consider, so the thinking never feels properly finished.

Self-belief can include trusting our future selves to respond when there is something real to respond to, with facts, context and support available at the time.

We do not have to become experts in every situation our imagination creates.