5 practical actions for when you feel worried.
“Little minds, they have little worries; great minds ... have no time for worries. "
Ralpho Waldo Emerson.
Raise your hand if you haven't been in a bit worried at least once in a lifetime?!
Last week we talked about Start! the practical guide to stop procrastinating. Those who have read it have discovered how fear e concerns are among the 4 key causes of "always putting off until tomorrow".
Yes, yes André, I understand! You have published your guide! We are all happy, but now we do not do that with every article you have to remind me: shouldn't we have talked about worries ?! Let's talk about concerns!
Le concerns they are part of our daily life, and the profound period of economic crisis and social uncertainty that we are going through certainly does not help to regain serenity and tranquility. Often these concerns lead to real pathologies, such as anxiety and panic attacks, which must be properly treated by specialists. However, even the normal ones concerns they often deprive us of our balance, compromising our quality of life.
What to do in these cases? Are there practical actions to be taken immediately to eliminate or at least reduce concerns?
But in your opinion ?! Cabbages! you are in the blog of practical solutions par excellence! Do you want GetPersonalGrowth not to find you 4-5 bullet points also to teach you how to tie your shoes effectively ?! ;-)
Here then for you the 5 best strategies to stop being worried:
1. Follow Bruce Lee's example
As a martial arts enthusiast, Bruce Lee has been an inexhaustible source of inspiration for me since childhood. In an article dedicated to achieving the goals, I also reported one of his famous aphorisms. But what can Bruce Lee teach you about worries?
Whenever he felt worried, young Bruce Lee would do a "list of concerns“, Or rather a simple list of everything that tormented him or took away his serenity.
Putting your worries on paper can be extremely effective. Indeed, what makes worries powerful is theirs vagueness: we feel scared and nervous, but we don't know exactly why.
Write what worries you: process it through the written word. Take it off your head and put it on paper. But do you want to know what else Bruce Lee did to get rid of his worries?
Once his "list of worries" was completed ... he set it on fire. A symbolic gesture that however sends a very powerful signal to our brain. And now, please, don't set the house on fire because GetPersonalGrowth from GetPersonalGrowth told you !!! ;-)
2. Put a cost on worries
There is another very nice trick to make worries less vague (and therefore less powerful) and at the same time become aware of how much these worries have an impact, a cost, on our life.
Whenever you are worried, take one a coin will give 5 cent and put it in a glass or jar. This simple exercise will help you understand how much worries are an integral part of your life and thoughts, but above all it will give you an immediate picture of how much these worries "cost you".
5 cents aside, worries deprive us of 2 essential resources for our success:
- Our physical energy.
- Our focus.
3. Pay attention to what you say to yourself
Worries are only present in our heads. Guess what fills our head, our thoughts? Bingo! The words.
What we repeat over and over becomes inexorably our reality.
Learn to observe your thoughts, the phrases that you repeat continuously between you and you; but most of all change your words: stop complaining all the time and start talking to you differently. Change the "I can't do it" with the "I can do it", the "it's too difficult" with the "it's within my reach", the "I can't get out of it" with the "this is an opportunity".
4. Make use of gratitude
I have promised myself several times to write an article devoted entirely to gratitude. This emotion, if cultivated on a daily basis can have extraordinary effects on our life.
No new-age hipsters or weird oriental philosophies. Serious scientific studies have shown beyond doubt how the feeling of gratitude helps to systematically eliminate worries. Skeptical? read this: “6 Scientific Ways to Find True Happiness“.
Yes, ok Andre, all clear: how the heck I pull out a crumb of gratitude if bad luck has decided that I am the only human being worthy of your full attention ?!
I already told you about the benefits of keeping a personal journal, right? Well: every morning, as soon as you wake up or immediately after having a nice breakfast, take your personal diary and write 5 things you're grateful for.
You don't necessarily have to have won the lottery to feel grateful. Simple pleasures in life, like a good night's sleep or the taste of coffee as soon as you wake up. For the hell of it! You're reading this article about a tool that more than 70% of the world's population can't even afford!
In short, in every moment of your life, both in the best moments and in the darkest ones, there is always something that works and something that could be better. Learn to focus on what works, what you have, what is good in your life.
5. See problems with new eyes
There is a slightly macabre but very effective saying:
"If you're looking for someone with no problems, go to the cemetery."
Being alive means having problems. Problems are an essential part of our life. Without problems to face and limits to overcome, we could not grow to improve ourselves.
As convinced as you may be, there is an opportunity in every problem you are facing. Even better: the bigger the problem, the greater the opportunity.
Guess what: worrying isn't the most effective strategy for dealing with problems. Acting is.
Do now, at this very moment, one list of problems that worry you the most, define the actions you need to take to solve these problems, pick one of these actions and… take action. Great Jupiter! Stop putting off!
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Have a good week.
