Are you anxious or just creative?

I know a lot of anxious people. I'm Jewish after all. And this is an anxiety-inducing time. My social circle and I worry about war; we worry about people losing their political rights; but we also worry about getting in a car crash, getting abducted by aliens, and getting rabies. It's a free-for-all of anxiety!

I recently realized that the anxious people I know are so creative with all the bad things they think will happen! My husband, who is a fun-loving version of Larry David -- comes up with some amazing scenarios. "What would happen if we had triplets and then we both lost our jobs?" He ponders. "What if I meet Eddie Murphy and he doesn't like me?" he questions. 

This made me wonder (Carrie Bradshaw style, as usual), what if us anxious people could use the creativity we employ when imagining horrible scenarios, into imagining our goals and dreams? And I don't mean pie-in-the-sky dreams. (Perhaps focusing on meeting Eddie Murphy is not the most productive thing to do.) I mean envisioning things we want in our near-ish future. What if we used this brainpower to imagine having a baby and living a great life with that baby? What if we truly envisioned what it would feel like to get a promotion at work?

I actually started doing this every morning (as part of my work with my business coach), and I love the impact this practice has had on me. I now get to live in the world where I accomplished some of my goals, and I envision how good that is going to feel. My world is much more magical and exciting every day.

Consider using your anxious powers not only to imagine car crashes, but to imagine all the amazing things that will happen to you. Your brain is obviously full of ideas. Why not imagine some fun ones?