You’ve been offered a promotion at work. It’s something you wanted, something you worked toward, and objectively, it’s good news. More responsibility, better pay, recognition for your efforts. You should be excited.
But instead, you’re anxious. Your stomach is tight. You’re having trouble sleeping. You’re second-guessing whether you should have accepted. You’re worrying about everything that could go wrong.
Or maybe you’re getting married to someone you love. Or moving to a city you’ve always wanted to live in. Or starting a new job that’s a perfect fit for your skills. Or having a baby you’ve been planning for.
These are all positive changes – changes you chose, changes you wanted. So why do they feel so stressful? Why does your brain treat good news like a threat?
The answer is that anxiety doesn’t distinguish between good change and bad change. What triggers anxiety is the uncertainty, the disruption to routine, and the loss of control that comes with any major transition – regardless of whether that transition is positive or negative.
Change – even when it’s wanted and beneficial – can cause you to feel stressed, anxious, and even sad.
Why Change Affects Mental Health
At its core, anxiety is your brain’s response to uncertainty and perceived threat. When something is unfamiliar or unpredictable, your brain doesn’t know what to expect, which activates your threat detection system.
Change – even positive change – creates uncertainty:
- You Don’t Know How Things Will Actually Go – A promotion sounds great in theory, but you don’t know yet if you’ll succeed in the new role, if you’ll get along with new colleagues, or if the increased responsibility will be manageable. Your brain fills that uncertainty with worst-case scenarios.
- The Future is Unwritten – When your life is stable and predictable, you have a sense of what each day will look like. Change disrupts that predictability. Even if the change is positive, not knowing what comes next can feel destabilizing.
- You’re Leaving the Familiar Behind – Even when you’re moving toward something better, you’re leaving something known behind. Your brain is wired to prefer the familiar, even when the familiar isn’t great, because at least you know what to expect.
This is why anxiety often spikes right before or during major life transitions, even when those transitions are things you actively chose and wanted.
Why Your Brain Prefers the Familiar
Perhaps even more importantly, human brains are wired to seek safety and predictability. This made sense from an evolutionary perspective – our ancestors survived by being cautious about new situations, unfamiliar environments, and changes to routine that could signal danger.
Even though modern life is much safer than the environment our brains evolved in, that same wiring is still in place. Your brain treats change – any change – as something to be cautious about.
This is why:
- The Familiar Feels Safe – Even if your current situation isn’t perfect, at least you know how to navigate it. You know what to expect. You’ve developed routines and coping strategies. Change means you have to figure everything out again from scratch.
- Routine Reduces Cognitive Load – When your days are predictable, you don’t have to think as hard about what to do next. You operate on autopilot. Change forces you to be alert and make decisions constantly, which is mentally exhausting.
- The Known is Easier to Control – In your current situation, you have some sense of control. You know what works, what doesn’t, and how to manage challenges. In a new situation, you lose that sense of control, which triggers anxiety.
This preference for the familiar is why people sometimes stay in jobs they hate, relationships that aren’t working, or living situations that don’t serve them. It’s not that they don’t want things to be better – it’s that the anxiety of change feels worse than the dissatisfaction of staying put.
The Paradox of Positive Change
Positive change creates a unique type of anxiety because it comes with contradictory feelings:
- Excitement and Fear – You’re excited about the opportunity, but you’re also afraid of what could go wrong. These emotions can exist simultaneously and create internal conflict.
- Gratitude and Guilt – You feel grateful for the opportunity, but guilty for feeling anxious about it. You tell yourself you “should” just be happy, which makes the anxiety feel even worse.
- Hope and Pressure – You hope the change will improve your life, but that hope comes with pressure. What if it doesn’t work out? What if you made the wrong choice? What if you can’t handle it?
This paradox can make it hard to talk about your anxiety with others. When you say “I got promoted but I’m really anxious about it,” people might respond with “But that’s great news! You should be happy!” which makes you feel like your anxiety is irrational or ungrateful.
But anxiety about positive change is not irrational. It’s a natural response to uncertainty, pressure, and the disruption of the familiar.
What You Can Do About Anxiety Around Positive Change
If you’re experiencing anxiety about a positive change in your life, there are strategies that can help you manage the discomfort and move forward:
Acknowledge That the Anxiety is Normal
The first step is recognizing that anxiety about change – even positive change – is a normal human response. You’re not broken. You’re not ungrateful. You’re not weak. Your brain is doing what brains do when faced with uncertainty.
Giving yourself permission to feel anxious without judgment reduces the secondary anxiety that comes from feeling like you “shouldn’t” feel this way.
Separate Excitement from Anxiety
Excitement and anxiety create very similar physical sensations – increased heart rate, butterflies in your stomach, restlessness. Sometimes, what feels like anxiety is actually a mix of excitement and nervousness.
Try reframing the sensation. Instead of “I’m so anxious about this,” try “I’m excited and a little nervous, which makes sense given how big this change is.”
Focus on What You Can Control
Anxiety thrives on things you can’t control. Shift your focus to what you can control:
- Preparing for the new role, relationship, or situation
- Building support systems
- Taking care of your physical and mental health
- Breaking the transition into smaller, manageable steps
You can’t control whether everything will go perfectly, but you can control how you prepare and how you respond to challenges.
Challenge Catastrophic Thinking
Anxiety often takes the form of catastrophic “what if” thoughts: “What if I fail? What if I can’t handle it? What if I made a huge mistake?”
Challenge these thoughts by asking:
- What evidence do I have that this will actually happen?
- What’s the most likely outcome, not the worst-case scenario?
- Even if things don’t go perfectly, can I handle it?
- Have I successfully navigated change before?
Most of the time, the catastrophic outcomes your brain is predicting are far less likely than the more neutral or positive outcomes.
Build in Transition Time
Don’t expect yourself to jump into a major change and immediately feel comfortable. Give yourself time to adjust. It’s normal to feel awkward, overwhelmed, or uncertain in the early stages of any transition.
Allow yourself a grace period where you’re still learning, still adapting, and still figuring things out. You don’t have to have it all together on day one.
Maintain Some Familiarity
When everything feels like it’s changing at once, maintaining some familiar routines or connections can provide stability.
If you’re moving to a new city, keep in touch with old friends. If you’re starting a new job, maintain your morning routine. If you’re having a baby, hold onto hobbies or activities that feel like “you.”
You don’t have to let go of everything familiar to embrace change.
Talk About It
Anxiety thrives in isolation. Talking about your feelings – with a partner, friend, family member, or therapist – helps you process them and realize you’re not alone.
If people in your life don’t understand why you’re anxious about a positive change, find someone who does. A therapist who specializes in anxiety or life transitions can provide validation and tools to manage the discomfort.
When to Seek Professional Support
If anxiety about change is preventing you from moving forward, causing significant distress, or interfering with your ability to function, therapy can help.
Therapy provides:
- A Space To Process Your Feelings – Without judgment or pressure to “just be happy.”
- Tools To Manage Anxiety – Cognitive-behavioral strategies, mindfulness, and other techniques that reduce anxiety symptoms.
- Support Through The Transition – Having someone in your corner as you navigate the change can make it feel less overwhelming.
- Clarity About Whether The Change Is Right – Sometimes, anxiety is your intuition telling you something important. Therapy can help you distinguish between normal transition anxiety and genuine concerns about the decision.
If you’re anxious about a positive change in your life, you’re not alone. Change is inherently stressful, even when it’s something you want and choose. Your anxiety doesn’t mean you made the wrong decision. It means you’re human, and your brain is processing a major transition.
With the right support, strategies, and self-compassion, you can move through the anxiety and into the life you’re building – one that’s richer, fuller, and more aligned with what you want, even if getting there feels uncomfortable.