Future Thinking: When Planning Becomes Worry

The ability to imagine the future is one of the great gifts of the human mind. I’m a future-focused person. I like setting goals, making plans and experiencing a sense of achievement when I tick something off a list - however big or small. My teachers used to sit me away from the windows. They called me “Dolly Daydream” and claimed I always had my head in the clouds. They weren’t wrong.

I am a dreamer...

Dreaming helps me feel calm, creative and optimistic. It allows me to imagine what might be possible and turn ideas into plans. In the workplace, future thinking is an important strength. It helps us anticipate problems, notice opportunities, prepare for change and think strategically. It allows us to imagine how an organisation, project or career could develop rather than simply responding to whatever happens next.

But future thinking has a shadow side. Sometimes it stops being planning and becomes worrying!

When thinking ahead takes us away from today

I originally wrote about future thinking during lockdown in 2020, when I realised I had spent more than 30 hours searching Rightmove. Were we planning to move? Eventually.

Did I check Rightmove even when we weren’t actively looking? Of course.

Did I also check what I could afford if I won the lottery, despite not actually playing the lottery? Obviously!

It felt harmless, but I had become so absorbed in imagining a different future that I was missing parts of the life happening around me. The same thing can happen at work.

We can spend so much time thinking about the next role, promotion, restructure or organisational announcement that we struggle to remain connected to the job and the people in front of us.

Our thoughts might sound like:

• What if my role changes?

• What if I don’t get promoted?

• What if everyone else is progressing faster than I am?

• What if I’m not visible enough?

• What if my skills aren’t needed in the future?

• What if that meeting in my diary means something bad? (*This particularly stings those of us who are nerodivergent).

  
  

Before long, we are trying to solve problems that haven’t happened—and may never happen.

Planning or trying to create certainty?

The workplace often rewards future thinking. We are encouraged to be strategic, ambitious, agile and prepared. We create development plans, succession plans, workforce plans and transformation plans.

But there is a difference between preparing thoughtfully and trying to predict every possible outcome.

When things feel uncertain, future thinking can become an attempt to manufacture certainty. We mentally rehearse conversations, study every possible scenario and search for small clues about what might happen next.

For many neurodivergent people, uncertainty can create a particularly strong cognitive and emotional demand. Thinking through possibilities may be a useful way to prepare, but it can also become exhausting when there isn’t enough clear information to reach an answer.

That is why communication matters so much during workplace change.

When leaders leave gaps, people will often fill them, and the stories we create are rarely reassuring ones.

Clear information, realistic timescales and honest acknowledgement of what is not yet known can reduce the amount of energy people spend trying to predict the future.

When ambition becomes self-criticism

Future thinking can also affect how we see our careers.

Goals can motivate us, but an imagined future can quickly become a standard against which we judge our present:

• I should be further ahead by now.

• I should have achieved more.

• Other people at my age are already senior leaders.

• If I were more confident, organised or articulate, I would have progressed faster.

• I have missed my opportunity.

  
  

I know how easy it is to look at where I thought I would be and interpret every unexpected turn as a failure. As a teenager, my plan was to marry Robbie Williams, become a midwife, have four children and live in Australia.

So far, I have achieved precisely none of those things!

My real life took a very different route. It has been less predictable, more complicated and, in many ways, far richer than the future teenage me imagined.

Careers are rarely straight lines either. People change direction, pause, recover, care for others, start again, discover new strengths and find opportunities they could never have planned for. A career that looks different from the one you imagined is not necessarily a career that has gone wrong.

From fractions to catastrophe in half a second

One of my clearest lessons about future thinking came while home-educating my then eight-year-old son during lockdown. As someone who sat her maths GCSE four times and finally passed at 26, I found myself trying to teach him fractions.

My thoughts could easily have gone something like this:

He can’t grasp his maths. He’s just like me. He won’t pass his GCSE. Then he’ll have to do resits, his college plans will be delayed, he won’t get into university or secure a good apprenticeship and it will be my fault.

My son was eight!

The thought had travelled from one difficult maths lesson to his entire future in approximately half a second. But that day, I caught it. I stopped trying to solve his whole future and returned to the problem in front of us. We sat together, followed his lead and worked it out. We learned together and felt accomplished together.

The same principle applies at work.

We don’t always need to solve the restructure, secure the promotion, map the next ten years or prepare for every possible eventuality

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Sometimes we need to ask:

• What is actually happening now?

• What do I know, rather than fear?

• What is within my control?

• What is the next useful step?

  
  

Creating a healthier balance

Future thinking is not the enemy. It helps us dream, innovate, prepare and believe that something different is possible.

The aim is not to stop thinking ahead. It is to notice when helpful planning has tipped into rumination.

A few things can help:

• Give future thinking a boundary. Set aside time to plan, then return to the work in front of you.

• Separate facts from fears. Write down what you know, what you don’t yet know and what you are imagining.

• Focus on the next useful action. You may not be able to control the outcome, but there may be one practical step you can take today.

• Notice comparison. Someone else’s career timeline is not evidence that yours is wrong.

• Ask for clarity. If uncertainty is affecting your ability to work, it is reasonable to ask what is known, what remains undecided and when further information is expected.

  
  

Leaders also have a responsibility here. People should not have to exhaust themselves decoding vague messages or trying to anticipate decisions that could have been communicated clearly.

Dream - but remember to come back!

I am still a dreamer.

I still make far too many lists, imagine countless versions of the future and occasionally disappear down a Rightmove rabbit hole.

But I am learning to ask myself:

Is this thought helping me prepare, or is it taking me away from today?

Sometimes the most hopeful thing we can do is imagine a brighter future.

Sometimes it is to take one small step towards it.

And sometimes, we need to pause long enough to recognise the small patch of sunshine that is already here.

How does future thinking show up for you at work? Does it help you feel prepared and optimistic, or can it pull you into worry, comparison and overthinking?

Thank you so much for reading.