No doubt if you are struggling with infertility you have asked yourself “What if?” more than once when trying to make a decision. So many questions come up and it is easy to get sucked into the “What If Woes” of the process.
It is easy to come up with questions that can undermine your progress to your goal. Most of them do start with “What if…”. No one has a crystal ball to tell you exactly what will happen on your fertility journey but we like to make predictions based off our “what if” thinking. To us, these answers seem like facts and inevitable parts of the process.
But all of those “what if” statements set us up to think of the worst possibility. What if the worst thing happened that you can imagine? Conversely, what if the best thing happened that you can imagine? Either scenario is possible. That is the beauty of thinking about the future. It can be whatever you want it to be in your minds. It doesn’t have to be pessimistic or bleak. It doesn’t have to be sad.
When we get stuck in the What If Woes we are more likely to not take action towards our dreams. They paralyze us and convince us that we’re better off staying where we are rather than going after what we want. Our brains are hard wired to do this. Thousands of years of evolution has lead to the What If Woes. We think that they keep us safe. We think they are for our own protection but ultimately they don’t really do us much good.
If you are ‘what if-ing” your way through infertility with questions like:
- What if this cycle doesn’t work?
- What if I spend more money and don’t get pregnant?
- What if my body just can’t do this?
- What if I never become a mother?
You are priming yourself for the worst case scenario. But the truth is, you are living it already. Think about it. You are already experiencing the worst case scenario. You are prepping yourself for the doom and gloom rather than embracing the possibility of what could happen.
So what if you keep trying and it fails? You already know what that feels like. Failing at what you are going after is not the worst case scenario. Not going after your dreams and the things you want because you are afraid of the feelings that will come up if you don’t achieve them is the worst case.
What are you afraid of? What is holding you back from moving forward? If you feel stuck make an appointment with me and let’s chat. Don’t get stuck saying “what if” and missing out on the life of your dreams.