Hello I’m Jessica Hylands Life and Confidence Coach,

I haven’t done a video for a while as things have been very busy since Lockdown started.

Apart from working hard, like a lot of us during this time, I’ve turned my hand to making yogurt and baking bread, growing veg, cutting my own hair! That was a risky one.

So, there’s the fun stuff. But for a lot of us, this time has brought its challenges.

It’s brought good things, but it has brought a lot of challenges too.

A lot of the tough bits have been …tough because there’s no real clear picture going forwards. We don’t know what’s round the corner. And that’s been ongoing since the start.

The initial Lockdown took a lot of getting used to. We just got used to that and then we were allowed out for an hour a day to exercise.

And then more times per day, and then allowed out but had to wear a mask.

And then we could go to the beach but stay 2 metres apart and then, and then, and then,

and for me the constant changing of the rules I found more difficult than total Lockdown.

It almost felt as though we were starting again every time there was a change and we had to get used to a new way of being. Again. And that can be hard.  

The challenges for each of us will be different.

Some of the challenges are because of known factors. Maybe you’ve lost your job or your business.

Maybe god forbid you’ve lost a loved one to Covid.

Your living situation may be different. Either you’re completely isolated, or you went from you and your partner in the house to suddenly having all the kids moving back in so that you’re together through the lockdown. If you’d all realised how long it was going to go on for you may have decided differently. That situation may have caused some strained relationships.  

So, some challenges can be known factors and some can be unknown.

Unknown factors can be more distressing than known ones.

With a known challenge, you can decide what to do about it and take some action.

With an unknown challenge, it’s more difficult because it’s tricky to make decisions on something that hasn’t and may never happen. But it eats away at you all the time anyway. Just in case. 

It takes away your peace of mind. All the time. It hovers like a dark cloud over your head and stops you enjoying anything.

What if I lose my job?

What if I never get my spontaneous, live on the edge social life back?

What if I can’t go on holiday where I want to this year?

What if I catch the virus?

The unknowns are so difficult because you’re trying to deal with something that hasn’t happened. And may never happen.

So, what can you do about it?

What can you do about all these unknowns that are chipping away at your happiness, your peace of mind, your confidence, your enjoyment of life?

The easy way is to say, ignore it, brush it aside. It probably won’t happen so don’t waste energy worrying about it.

That’s it. Sound advice. Off you go and do that.

Not always that simple though is it?

Although it’s worth a go though. Try that first. “There’s no value in worrying about it so forget it. as and when and if it happens, I’ll deal with it then”.

If you manage to stop worrying about it through doing do that, then brilliant. Because that’s by far the easiest and quickest way around it.

If, however that doesn’t sit with your way. With the way that you work as a character then maybe the second idea might help.

When you find yourself going down a ‘what if’ hole, write down the details of what it is that you’re worrying is about. 

What if I lose my job?

And the thought of it is churning your stomach and your whole future is flashing before your eyes.

Think about the detail of it and what you could do to make it less scary.

If you lose this job, what other type of work could you get?

How much have you got in savings – how long would that support you if you weren’t working?

Where could you cut costs so that it wouldn’t cost you so much to live so that you could cope with living off of one income perhaps?

If you detail your outgoings, you may find that you can cut out a few memberships that you may or may not get good value from, cut out a few other luxuries that you wouldn’t really notice. If necessary, you could scale back further, luxuries that you would notice but you could make do with. For example, instead of spending £5 a day on your favourite take away drink, could you make your own and take it out in your thermos mug?

Not quite the same experience but for saving £5 a day if and when you need to, it’s not so bad.

When you think about ‘what if’ in terms of losing your job, think about what you would be able to do, until you can say “Yes, I could cope if I lost my job”.

If your worry is, because you work in a field where demand has risen because of the pandemic, you’re worrying about how you will be able to keep up the frantic pace of work that seems to have become the norm.

Again, look at the detail. If it transpires that you are expected to keep up this pace long term, what would need to change for you to feel comfortable. A complete change of career? A change in the role that you play in your current field. Committing to fewer hours? What’s possible? What would make you feel less anxious going forwards.

Whatever the ‘what if’ that you have, I think if you have a plan as to what you will do if your feared problem hits the fan, it takes the stress out of the fear.

The actual fear is fear of the unknown.

The fear is “What will I do?! How will I cope?”

If you know exactly what you‘ll do then when the fear pops its head up, it won’t be scary because you’ll know how you’re going to handle it.

Whatever the problem is, from relationships to work to money to your social life. Have a backup plan. Plan A may be more appealing to you than plan B, but Plan ‘No idea’ isn’t attractive or inspiring for most of us.

So, my tip for getting rid of what’s ifs, isn’t to try and sweep them under the carpet, or worse still, let then get a grip on you, it’s about bringing them to the surface and examining them. looking at what to do with them. You’ll then have your plan and as a result maybe some peace of mind.

So I do hope that you have some joy in putting this into action, when you find yourself making up all sorts of disastrous ‘What if’s’.

As always, if you need any help, please do get in touch for a chat.

Thanks for listening

Bye for now.