Day 13: Chewing the Could
Week 2 Diagnosis
Getting stuck in what you could do is a dangerous habit. A worried mind tends to be indecisive. Anxiety causes indecision. And getting stuck between one thing or another causes uncertainty and more doubt, which is not the healthiest thing for a mind that’s already worried.
The trick? Look out for a series of could statements in your self-talk. Or any other series of chained-together possibility statements. These are words like might, may, had better, maybe, as well as could. To stop this, ask yourself what you will do instead. That will stop your could chewing in its tracks.
The Freeze Response
Everyone talks about the fight or flight response. Anxiety and worry trigger it. It’s basic survival biology. But few of us consider there’s a third survival reaction: freeze. When you’re confronted by a stressful situation, you often freeze too.
Even when you’re not faced with a life-threatening event, in times of stress you can get mentally stuck in alternatives. Getting stuck in what you could do can be a real problem. When you’re hit by stressful situations, your mind can get into the habit of freezing in this state of indecision. The only way you know this is happening? You start to mentally chew on the could.
Sometimes worry is about this indecision. This creates stress. And your brain is more likely to get frozen in this indecision, which creates more worry. It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg effect, as well as a cycle of perpetual indecision.
It’s a really common negative thought pattern. People tend to ruminate on alternatives, causing more and more worry and ultimately little action. So notice the coulds in your self-talk. If you feel that you’re chewing the could for too long, there’s still hope. One, stop doing it. Two, decide on the one thing you can do, however small.
What’s Actually Happening in Your Brain
Your prefrontal cortex, the decision-making part of your brain, is trying to simulate outcomes for each option. Every could you generate triggers another simulation. Another what-if scenario. Another potential outcome to evaluate.
This would be fine if you were making a genuinely complex decision that required careful consideration. But most of the time you’re not. You’re stuck between options that are roughly equivalent, or you’re overthinking something that doesn’t matter, or you’re avoiding action by pretending to deliberate.
Meanwhile, each simulation costs energy. Mental energy. And while you’re busy running all these simulations, your stress hormones are building. Your anxiety is increasing. And the more anxious you get, the less capable you become of actually making a decision.
It’s a vicious cycle. Indecision creates anxiety. Anxiety impairs decision-making. Which creates more indecision. Which creates more anxiety. And all the while, you’re sitting there thinking I could do this, or I could do that, or maybe I could. You’re chewing. Chewing on possibilities that you’re never going to swallow. Never going to digest. Never going to turn into actual action.
But here’s the thing: you’re not even making decisions when you’re chewing the could. You’re just thinking about making decisions. Which takes almost as much energy as actually making them, but produces exactly zero results.
Breaking the Cycle
You need to recognise the pattern. When you catch yourself stringing together multiple coulds in your self-talk, that’s your signal. You’re not deliberating anymore. You’re stuck.
At that point, you need to shift from could to will. Not because one option is objectively better than another, but because making any decision and moving forward is better than staying frozen.
Here’s a practical rule: if you find yourself generating more than three could statements about the same decision, stop. Pick one. Any one. And commit to it for the next 24 hours. You can always change course later, but you can’t stay frozen forever.
The funny thing is, once you actually make a decision and start acting on it, your brain calms down. The anxiety drops. Not because you necessarily made the right choice, but because you made a choice. Your brain hates uncertainty more than it hates the possibility of being wrong.
Action creates clarity. Indecision creates fog.
The Practical Fix
Listen to your self-talk. Count the coulds. When you hit three, stop chewing and start doing. Pick one option. Commit to it. Move forward.
Because while you’re sitting there chewing on all those possibilities, life is happening. Opportunities are passing. Time is moving. And you’re stuck in place, generating coulds that you’ll never act on.
References
- Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- Beck, A.T. (1979). Cognitive Therapy of Depression. Guilford Press.
- Burns, D.D. (1980). Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. William Morrow.
- Borkovec, T.D., & Inz, J. (1990). The nature of worry in generalised anxiety disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 28(2), 153-158.
- LeDoux, J. (1996). The Emotional Brain. Simon & Schuster.
- Sapolsky, R.M. (2004). Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. Henry Holt.
- Bandler, R. & Grinder, J. (1979). Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming. Real People Press.
- Neff, K. (2011). Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. William Morrow.
- Seligman, M.E.P. (1991). Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. Knopf.