This 8-Word Question Instantly Kills Anxiety

This expert opinion by Jessica Stillman, contributor at Inc.com, was originally published on Inc.com.

We live in anxious and uncertain times. No wonder many entrepreneurs’ heads are a blizzard of anxiety-producing “what ifs.”

What if tariffs stick around and my costs rise? If they don’t, how will I make long-term business decisions? What if there’s a recession? What if I lose my government contacts? What if my area is hit by a natural disaster? What if artificial intelligence upends my industry? And on and on and on. 

Unfortunately, I can’t argue these worries are unwarranted. But I can offer an unexpected suggestion on how to quiet all the “what ifs” keeping you up at night. This anxiety-killing trick is endorsed by a motley assortment of experts including psychologists, author Tim Ferriss, and Stoic philosophers. It’s effective and simple — all it entails is one simple eight-word question. But I warn you, it does demand a little courage. 

Anxiety Can Be A superpower … 

Before I reveal this magic, anxiety-killing question, it’s important to point out that all your anxiety actually has a significant upside. Constant worry feels miserable. But according to NYU neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki, author of the 2022 book Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion, each terrifying “what if” can prompt you to think through potential problems and better prepare for them. 

When used as a roadmap to avoid pitfalls, Suzuki insists anxiety is a potential “superpower.” But in order to benefit from anxiety, you need to get out of spirals of repetitive worry and begin thinking constructively about real-world actions you can take to improve your situation. 

That’s where a recent Psychology Today article from another author and psychologist, Jeffrey Bernstein, comes in. In his article, Bernstein offers a concrete prescription to turn exhausting and unproductive “what ifs” into an orientation toward action and a calmer, more positive mindset. 

“It’s astonishing how two tiny words—what if?—can unravel your sense of peace in seconds,” Bernstein relatably writes. “Anxiety loves ‘what ifs.’ They fuel uncertainty, inflate fears, and hijack the brain’s ability to think clearly. From kids to grownups, no one is immune to these words.”

The key to getting back your peace of mind is to swap out all these “what ifs” for another question. It’s probably the last thing you‘d expect a psychologist to recommend. Ask yourself: “What is the worst thing that can happen?”

… But You Have To Channel It Right 

Wait, what? Why is Bernstein suggesting that dwelling on the worst-case scenario will somehow help you feel better? 

Focusing on the worst possible outcome is anchored in cognitive behavior therapy, Bernstein explains. “It doesn’t encourage doom-thinking. Quite the opposite: It anchors you. It makes your brain slow down, assess reality, and realize that even if the worst happens, you can survive it.” 

Think about the last scary movie you watched. I am going to bet you were most terrified before you saw the creatures terrorizing the small town or the aliens invading earth. Once you got a good look at their horrible teeth or merciless space lasers, some fear probably remained. But from that point on you probably focused more on the fight back. 

Would the plucky heroes manage to blow up the mothership or lure the monster back to another dimension? More mental real estate was taken up by planning and cheering them on. Less was available for terror. 

People’s biggest fears, at the movies and in real life, are the unseen but imagined threats lurking just over the horizon. What you face in real life may be scary, but 99 times out of 100, it’s less scary than what you half allow yourself to picture when in the grips of “what if” thinking. 

Escaping The Fog Of “What If” Thinking

Bernstein uses less cinematic, more therapeutic language to describe why “What is the worst thing that can happen?’ is strangely comforting. “It stops your brain from running wild with vague dread,” he writes, and “grounds you in reality. You’re forced to get specific rather than get lost in a ‘what if’ fog.”

Sure, facing the worst possible outcome can be scary. But once you see the true shape of what you’re dealing with, you’re more likely to have faith in your ability to cope. You’re also more likely to start taking concrete action to better weather whatever storm is coming. 

An Anxiety-Killing Question That Goes All The Way Back To Ancient Rome

Film directors and psychologists have learned that humans are terrified by the unknown but rise to the occasion of defined challenges. But this isn’t a new insight. In a classic talk at Google, Ferrris explained he’s a big fan of asking “What’s the worst that can happen?” It’s an approach he learned from the Stoic philosophers of ancient Rome. 

From the ancients, Ferriss learned that “defining your fears instead of your goals is a key to doing anything uncommon,” he tells the audience, offering a personal example. He once had a business that demanded he work 14-hour days just to keep it afloat. He knew the situation was unsustainable, but for six months he was trapped in “an endless loop of ‘what if’ scenarios.” 

What if he lost his biggest customer? What if he had tax problems? There were lots of fears but none of it was actionable, so all the “what ifs” just looped in his mind. Then he came across the writings of Seneca. 

“I performed an exercise that he suggested, which was taking out a piece of paper … and detailing in the first column, all of the terrible things, the worst-case scenarios that could happen,” Ferriss reports. “Second column, all of the things that I could do to minimize the likelihood of those things happening. And then in the last column were all of the line-by-line actions I could take to get back to where I was then to re-achieve the status quo.” 

Looking at his paper, Ferriss saw that on a scale of one to 10, the pain he was facing from even the worst outcome was maybe a two. He ditched the business, went on a sabbatical, and ended up writing his 2009 bestseller The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. 

Eight Little Words, Big Anxiety-Killing Impact

I can’t guarantee that asking “What’s the worst that can happen?” about your biggest fears will have as happy an outcome as Ferriss’s Stoic-inspired exercise. But both psychology and ancient philosophy suggest that, at a bare minimum, your anxiety will be cut down to size and options for constructive action revealed. 

Which is a pretty big and positive impact for a simple question that’s just eight words long.