Introduction
Fortune Telling is a cognitive distortion in which you predict negative outcomes without sufficient evidence. It involves making assumptions about the future as if you can see into it with certainty—typically forecasting failure, rejection, or disaster.
This guide examines how fortune telling operates, the effects it can have on your emotional well-being and behavior, and effective DBT strategies to help you challenge these predictions and cultivate a more balanced perspective on the future.
Key Takeaway
Fortune Telling convinces you that negative outcomes are inevitable, creating anxiety and avoidance behaviors that can limit your opportunities and experiences—even though the future remains fundamentally uncertain.
Understanding Fortune Telling
What Is Fortune Telling?
Fortune Telling is making negative predictions about the future and treating them as established facts rather than possibilities. It involves anticipating that things will go wrong, that you'll fail, or that disasters will occur—all without adequate evidence to support these conclusions.
How It Works
When you engage in fortune telling, your mind fixates on worst-case scenarios as if they're inevitable. This distorted thinking selectively ignores positive possibilities, past successes, and the fundamental unpredictability of life, instead treating negative outcomes as foregone conclusions.
Examples
- • "If I apply for that job, I'll definitely be rejected"
- • "This relationship won't last—it's going to end badly"
- • "I'll never recover from this setback"
- • "If I speak up in the meeting, everyone will think I'm stupid"
Why It Matters
By constantly predicting negative outcomes, you can increase anxiety and stress in the present moment over events that haven't occurred and may never happen. This can lead to avoidance behaviors, limited personal growth, and a constricted life as you try to protect yourself from imagined disasters.
Common Manifestations
Negative Predictions
Believing that a minor setback will spiral into disaster without evidence to support this escalation. These predictions often use absolute language like "always," "never," or "definitely" to lock in negative outcomes as certainties.
Doomsday Scenarios
Imagining catastrophic outcomes without considering more likely, moderate possibilities. These scenarios often involve exaggerated consequences far beyond what's realistic, creating excessive anxiety about remote possibilities.
Avoidance Behaviors
Skipping opportunities or challenges to avoid the possibility of negative results. This safety behavior prevents you from testing your predictions against reality, reinforcing the belief that your forecasts are accurate despite the lack of evidence.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
The belief in an inevitable negative outcome may influence your behavior in ways that actually increase the likelihood of that outcome. For example, expecting social rejection might make you appear withdrawn, creating the very distance you feared.
Impact on Mental Health
The Mental Health Burden
Engaging in fortune telling can heighten anxiety, stress, and feelings of helplessness. By constantly bracing yourself for negative outcomes, you live in a state of anticipatory anxiety—experiencing the emotional distress of problems that may never materialize.
Over time, this distorted thinking pattern can contribute to chronic anxiety, depression, and a pessimistic worldview that becomes increasingly difficult to challenge or change.
Related Mental Health Conditions
- Generalized anxiety disorder
- Social anxiety
- Depression
- Panic disorder
Long-term Effects
- Diminished confidence in decision-making
- Reduced willingness to try new experiences
- Chronic stress from anticipating disasters
- Limited personal and professional growth
DBT Techniques & Strategies
Dialectical Behavior Therapy offers several effective techniques for challenging fortune telling and developing a more balanced perspective on the future:
Mindfulness
Notice when you begin to predict negative outcomes. Acknowledge these thoughts without judgment and recognize them as predictions rather than facts about the future.
Application
When you catch yourself making negative predictions, pause and label the thought: "I notice I'm fortune telling right now. This is just a prediction my mind is making, not a fact about what will happen."
Cognitive Restructuring
Challenge your predictions by examining the evidence and considering alternative possibilities that include neutral or positive outcomes.
Questions to Ask
- • "What evidence do I have that this negative outcome is certain?"
- • "What are alternative, more balanced possibilities?"
- • "Have there been times when things turned out better than I expected?"
- • "How would I assess the situation if it were happening to a friend?"
Behavioral Experiments
Test your predictions by deliberately taking small risks and systematically comparing the actual outcomes with your forecasted negative scenarios.
Example
If you've predicted "If I speak up in the meeting, everyone will think I'm stupid," challenge this by making one small contribution in the next meeting. Then record the actual response and compare it to your prediction.
Radical Acceptance
Accept that uncertainty is a fundamental part of life and that you cannot predict or control every outcome. Embrace the reality that the future contains both possibilities and limitations.
Practice
When facing uncertainty, try saying: "I cannot know for certain what will happen. The future contains many possibilities—both positive and negative. I accept this uncertainty while doing my best in the present moment."
Practical Exercises
Try these exercises to challenge your fortune-telling thought patterns:
Prediction Tracking
Record instances when you predict negative outcomes. Note the situation, your prediction, and later review what actually happened to build evidence that challenges your fortune telling.
Example Format
- Situation: Job interview next week
- Fortune-Telling Prediction: "I'll definitely stumble over my words and they'll immediately see I'm not qualified."
- Alternative Possibilities:
- I might do well on some questions and adequately on others
- The interviewers might appreciate my honesty and preparation
- I could get constructive feedback regardless of the outcome
- Actual Outcome: (To be completed after the interview)
Evidence Search
For each negative prediction, systematically collect evidence that challenges the inevitability of that outcome, including past experiences that contradict your fortune telling.
Steps
- Write down your negative prediction
- List all evidence that seems to support this prediction
- List ALL evidence that contradicts this prediction (including past successes and examples that disprove the "always/never" thinking)
- Examine whether your prediction ignores key variables or oversimplifies a complex situation
- Consider what a neutral observer would predict given the same facts
- Create a revised, more balanced prediction based on all the evidence
Exposure Exercise
Deliberately engage in activities that trigger your fortune-telling thoughts, starting with less anxiety-provoking situations and gradually working up to more challenging ones.
Structured Approach
- 1. Create a hierarchy: List situations that trigger fortune telling, from least to most anxiety-producing
- 2. Start small: Begin with a situation that causes only mild anxiety
- 3. Document before: Write down your specific prediction about what will happen
- 4. Take action: Engage in the activity despite your prediction
- 5. Document after: Record what actually happened versus what you predicted
- 6. Reflect: Note the discrepancy between prediction and reality
- 7. Progress: Move to slightly more challenging situations as you build confidence
Related Thinking Traps
Fortune Telling often appears alongside these other thinking traps:
Catastrophizing
Expecting the worst possible outcome from a situation, often out of proportion with reality.
Mind Reading
Assuming you know what others are thinking, usually attributing negative thoughts toward you without evidence.
Magnification & Minimization
Exaggerating negative aspects while downplaying positive ones, distorting the relative importance of events.
Conclusion
Fortune Telling can trap you in a cycle of negative expectations and heightened anxiety, limiting your willingness to engage with life's opportunities. By practicing mindfulness, cognitive restructuring, and gradually testing your predictions against reality, you can break free from this restrictive thought pattern.
Remember, embracing uncertainty is a fundamental part of living a full and meaningful life. No one—not even professional forecasters—can predict the future with certainty. By accepting this reality and focusing on what you can control in the present moment, you open yourself to a wider range of possibilities and experiences.
Moving Forward
Continue your journey toward more balanced thinking by exploring other DBT skills and resources: