I’ve always had a very analytical mind, and I think it’s one of the things that’s helped me throughout my professional life. I’m good at spotting patterns, recognising potential problems and seeing where things might be heading before other people necessarily do. The problem is that the same ability can sometimes work against me.
If I can see where something might go wrong, I can also start thinking about what happens next, and then what happens after that. Before I know it, I’ve gone from identifying a perfectly reasonable concern to imagining a whole series of increasingly negative outcomes, none of which have actually happened.
This is known as catastrophising, and it’s something I’ve struggled with for much of my life. Around 12 years ago, I experienced a particularly difficult period of anxiety, and learning to recognise and manage catastrophic thinking has been an important part of getting on top of it. I’m considerably better at it these days, but I still catch myself doing it occasionally.
It’s also something I recognise in my work as a weight loss coach, personal trainer and HYROX performance coach, where I’ve seen how expecting the worst can affect people’s confidence, decisions and performance.
And with everything going on in the world, from wars and the cost of living to climate change and AI potentially changing how we work, I think there’s plenty of material for our minds to worry about. Some of those concerns are entirely legitimate, but there’s a big difference between recognising that something could go wrong and convincing yourself that it inevitably will.
What Is Catastrophising and What Are the Signs?
Catastrophising is a pattern of thinking where we automatically imagine the worst possible outcome of a situation, often without much evidence to suggest it’s actually going to happen. It’s sometimes described as a cognitive distortion, which essentially means interpreting situations more negatively than the evidence justifies.
Imagine receiving an unexpected message from your boss asking if you can have a chat tomorrow. You start wondering whether you’ve done something wrong, which leads to worrying that your job might be at risk. Before long, you’re imagining being made redundant, struggling to pay your mortgage and having to find another job.
All because somebody asked if you were available for a meeting, which might turn out to be about something completely routine… and most likely will be!
What’s the Difference Between Worrying and Catastrophising?
Worrying about something isn’t necessarily bad, and anticipating problems can be useful. If your employer is making redundancies, for example, it’s reasonable to be concerned and perhaps update your CV.
Catastrophising is when that concern becomes an assumption that the worst possible outcome is inevitable. You’ve gone from recognising a genuine risk to treating a possibility as though it’s a certainty.
Why Do We Catastrophise?
Our brains are naturally good at looking for potential threats, but they don’t always distinguish particularly well between an immediate danger and something we’re imagining might happen in the future. Sometimes it may come about from a fear of failure.
If you’re naturally analytical, like me, this can be particularly frustrating. Being good at recognising patterns doesn’t mean every conclusion you reach is correct, and sometimes you’re simply joining dots that don’t necessarily belong together.
Anxiety can make this worse because when you’re already feeling anxious, you’re often more alert to potential threats. That can make it easier to interpret ordinary situations negatively, creating a cycle where worrying makes you increasingly likely to expect the worst.
Why Uncertainty Can Make Catastrophising Worse
One thing I’ve noticed this year is how worried some people seem to be about the future, and to be fair, there’s plenty going on. We’ve got wars, economic uncertainty, climate change and now AI potentially transforming entire industries.
I’m not suggesting people shouldn’t be concerned about these things, but there’s a difference between recognising a genuine problem and convincing yourself that the worst possible outcome is inevitable.
Take AI, for example. It’s sensible to consider how your career might need to adapt, but convincing yourself you’ll be unemployed in three years and your skills will become worthless isn’t particularly helpful. The first encourages you to prepare, while the second can leave you feeling helpless about something nobody can accurately predict.
How Catastrophising Can Affect Weight Loss
This is something I’ve come across quite a few times as a weight loss coach, particularly when people become very focused on what the scales are telling them.
Imagine somebody who’s been making good progress with their weight loss. They’ve been following a sensible nutrition approach, they’re becoming more active and their weight has been gradually coming down. Then one morning they step on the scales and discover they’re 1kg heavier than yesterday.
Suddenly, they’re worrying that their diet has stopped working, their metabolism has slowed down or they’re going to regain all the weight they’ve lost.
Yet body weight fluctuates naturally because of things like water retention, glycogen and food in the digestive system. A 1kg increase overnight doesn’t mean somebody has suddenly gained 1kg of body fat.
I’ve also seen people catastrophise when their weight loss slows down, immediately assuming their body has stopped responding. Sometimes there genuinely is something we need to change, but we need to establish that first rather than automatically assuming the worst.
As a coach, I try to help people separate what’s actually happening from what they’re assuming is happening. Two days of weight fluctuations don’t tell us very much, whereas a consistent trend over several weeks gives us something more useful to work with.
How Catastrophising Affects Sport and Fitness Performance
I think catastrophic thinking can be particularly unhelpful in sport because performance involves managing discomfort and interpreting how your body feels.
As a personal trainer and HYROX performance coach, I’ve seen how one difficult training session can leave someone worrying that they’ve lost fitness or won’t be ready for their event. Yet perhaps they haven’t recovered properly, they’ve slept badly or they’re simply having an off day. One terrible interval session doesn’t automatically mean months of training have been wasted.
The Big Hill Analogy
One example I often use comes from cycling, which is a sport I’ve been involved with for many years.
Imagine you’re approaching a big hill. You know it’s going to be difficult, your heart rate is going to increase and your legs are probably going to hurt. If you spend the entire approach telling yourself how horrible it’s going to be and how you’re probably going to struggle, you’ve already convinced yourself you’re going to have a terrible experience.
Now compare that with telling yourself you’ve trained for this, you’ve climbed hills like this before and you know how to manage your effort. You’ll settle into a rhythm, concentrate on your breathing and deal with the climb as it comes.
The hill hasn’t changed, your fitness hasn’t improved and it’s probably still going to hurt, but your mindset is completely different.
I’m not suggesting positive thinking magically makes you a better athlete, but constantly predicting disaster can make an already difficult situation feel even more threatening. The same applies to running and HYROX, where interpreting every uncomfortable sensation as evidence that you’re about to fall apart can affect how you approach the challenge.
Obviously, genuine warning signs shouldn’t be ignored, but there’s a difference between normal exercise discomfort and something that actually requires attention.
How Catastrophising Can Affect Your Career and Business
I’ve worked in business and marketing for many years, and I’ve certainly caught myself catastrophising in professional situations.
Imagine receiving an unhappy email from a client. Before you’ve even investigated what’s happened, you’re worrying that they’ll cancel their contract, you’ll lose the account and your income will suffer. Yet they might simply want an explanation or for something to be corrected.
Being able to anticipate problems is a valuable professional skill, but identifying a possible consequence doesn’t mean it’s inevitable. Sometimes the most useful response is to establish the facts, deal with the immediate issue and wait until you’ve got more information.
How to Stop Catastrophising and Challenge Negative Thoughts
After more than a decade of working on my own anxiety, I don’t think there’s a magic switch that suddenly stops you from catastrophising. But you can become much better at recognising what’s happening and questioning the conclusions your mind is reaching.
1. Recognise When You’re Catastrophising
For me, it’s often when I notice I’ve started thinking several steps ahead about something that hasn’t happened yet. Recognising that I’m catastrophising helps me question whether my interpretation is getting ahead of the evidence, rather than automatically accepting it as an accurate prediction.
2. Separate Facts From Predictions
It’s easy to take something that’s genuinely happened and attach a series of assumptions to it until you start treating those assumptions as facts.
For example:
- Fact: My weight has increased by 1kg since yesterday.
- Prediction: My diet has stopped working and I’m going to regain everything I’ve lost.
- Fact: A client has sent an unhappy email.
- Prediction: They’re going to cancel their contract.
The initial observations might be accurate, but the conclusions are predictions rather than established facts.
3. Ask Yourself What Evidence You Actually Have
When you catch yourself imagining the worst, ask whether there’s evidence supporting your conclusion or whether there might be another reasonable explanation.
One question I find particularly useful is whether I’m treating something that’s possible as though it’s probable. Almost anything is possible if you spend long enough thinking about it, but that doesn’t automatically make it likely.
4. Stop Trying to Predict Every Possible Outcome
This is something I’ve had to work on personally because I naturally like understanding where things might be heading. But sometimes there simply isn’t enough information available to reach a sensible conclusion, and spending hours imagining different outcomes won’t change that.
One expression I use quite often is you don’t know what you don’t know. You can recognise potential problems and prepare where appropriate, but you don’t need to mentally work through every possible disaster before anything has happened.
5. Be Careful How Much Negative Information You Consume
We’re exposed to an enormous amount of negative information, particularly through news and social media. You can start your morning reading about wars, economic problems and predictions about AI replacing jobs, and before you’ve finished your coffee, you’ve potentially got half a dozen new things to worry about.
I’m not suggesting we should ignore what’s happening in the world, but it’s worth recognising when consuming more information isn’t helping. Sometimes reading another ten articles simply gives you more material to worry about.
6. Bring Your Attention Back to What’s Actually Happening
Catastrophising can make you mentally experience situations that haven’t happened, sometimes repeatedly. You might spend an entire evening worrying about a meeting next week, even though there’s nothing you can do about it at that moment.
It’s similar to cycling up that big hill. Rather than worrying about how difficult the final kilometre might be, concentrate on your breathing, cadence and effort right now. You’re not ignoring the rest of the climb, you’re simply not making the current situation harder by imagining problems you haven’t encountered yet.
Can Catastrophising Be Linked to Anxiety?
Yes, catastrophising is commonly associated with anxiety, and the relationship can work in both directions. Anxiety can make you more likely to imagine threatening outcomes, while those thoughts can increase your anxiety further.
I recognise this from my own experience. When my anxiety was particularly bad around 12 years ago, I spent an enormous amount of time worrying about situations that hadn’t happened and, in many cases, never did.
It’s also important to recognise that persistent anxiety and catastrophic thinking can sometimes require professional support. Although I do have various behavioural change qualifications and training – so can sometimes help with aspects around this – I’m not a psychologist or mental health therapist, and approaches such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) can help people recognise and challenge unhelpful thinking patterns. If catastrophising is regularly affecting your everyday life, it’s worth speaking to your GP or an appropriately qualified professional.
Again… You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know
I don’t think my analytical mind has changed particularly much over the years. I’m still someone who likes spotting patterns, anticipating problems and thinking about where things might be heading, and professionally, those characteristics have generally served me well.
What has changed is that I’ve become much better at recognising when sensible analysis starts turning into catastrophising. I still catch myself doing it occasionally, but these days I’m more likely to question whether I’m responding to something that’s actually happening or something I’ve convinced myself might happen.
You don’t need to ignore genuine risks or pretend everything will be wonderful. Sometimes things do go wrong, and sometimes our concerns turn out to be justified, but plenty of the disasters we imagine never happen at all.
And even when something does go wrong, the consequences aren’t necessarily as terrible as we’d convinced ourselves they would be.
You can’t predict everything that’s going to happen tomorrow, next month or next year. Sometimes you simply don’t have enough information yet, and rather than filling in those gaps with the worst possible outcomes, perhaps the most useful thing you can do is recognise that you don’t know what you don’t know.
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