People who worry are hugely creative, they can think up an endless loop of self-perpetuating worries for why they or their ideas are likely to fail and so they successfully scare themselves away from actually trying. This irrational worrying is similar to that of superstitions in which something trivial can become the bearer of bad luck.

“When a worry is allowed to repeat over and over unchallenged, it gain persuasive power.” – Borkovec

This primitive thought patterns stems from our limbic brain and was used to protect us from danger in the wild but nowadays it does a good job at stopping us from reaching our full potential. As Jim Rohn states, “Humans are the only life form that will do less than they possibly can.” Self-defeating thoughts play a large part in the equation, he continues – “you’ve never heard of a tree growing half as high as it possibly could.”

We all know humans are irrational by nature but if our irrationality has the ability to scare us away from trying then it can be just as irrational in believing we have the possibility to succeed. For the chronic worrier the black cat is the bearer of bad news, for the chronic optimistic – it’s just a cat and I’ll be in charge of how this day goes.