The Anxiety Audit

How to complete The Anxiety Audit

Anxiety blurs everything into one giant threat. Writing worries down separates them, and crossing out what you can't control shrinks the pile to the few things you can actually act on.

1. Brain-dump every worry onto paper or a note, big or small, with no filtering or ordering.
2. Read each one and ask: can I directly influence this outcome? Be honest about what's truly in your hands.
3. Cross out everything outside your control: other people's choices, the past, hypotheticals, things you can only wait on.
4. Look at what survives. For each remaining item, write the single next action you could take.
5. Pick one action to do today, even a tiny one.

Tips

• "Worrying about it" is not control. If the only lever is rumination, cross it off.
• Some items are partly controllable; split them and keep only the controllable half.
• Keep the list. Revisiting in a week shows how many crossed-out fears never materialized.

What counts as done

You have a written list with uncontrollable worries struck through and a concrete next step for the ones that remain.