Worry is running practice drills for a game that might never be on the schedule.

Worry feels productive because it resembles preparation. You rehearse the bad conversation, run the scenario, work out what you would say, and none of it transfers, because the version that happens is never the version you rehearsed. The energy is genuine and it goes into a fixture that may not exist. Meanwhile nothing has been prepared for what is actually on the calendar.

Try separating the two. If there is a real action available, do the smallest piece of it now. If there is not, say the fear out loud to somebody, which tends to shrink it faster than another lap around it.