How to limit the mental 'rehearsals' before difficult conversations?

Post date: 2021-06-15 02:38:48

When I have to have a difficult or potentially difficult conversation I pre-play it, rehearse it in my head, and I think this is helpful. But sometimes I can't stop, I repeatedly go over it, and if my mind wanders the first thing it does is go to this particular imagined conversation to pre-play it again. How do I stop?

This is usually fairly low stakes things like "I have to call someone to do maintenance on a thing" or "I have to make a complaint about a product", but these are often things I can't do by email or immediately because of opening hours or whatever, and in the meantime my mind keeps wandering back to what I will say, how I'll deal with any pushback, what the worst case scenario might be. Is it just a case of "just stop" or "give yourself 5 mins to think and then stop" or do you have more innovative techniques?

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