Do You Worry a Lot? Here Are Some Practical Ways to Stop Your Worries – A Finance Dragon Newsletter Piece
How much time do you spend worrying about your future?
How much time do you let your mind be clouded by words and actions of self-interested people?
Maybe you realise that each moment you spend worrying endlessly is a moment lost. Yet, sometimes and some days, you cannot help it.
Since you know it makes sense not to fall into that habit of needless worries, today we will look at easy ways you can solve this problem.
To start, divide your worries into three segments:
- The First Segment is the one over which you have no control. E.g. how other people are, most changes that occur in the world, etc.
- The Second Segment is the one over which you have partial control. E.g. someone at work not doing their share, bad infrastructure in the locality you stay, etc.
- The Third Segment is the one over which you have absolute control. E.g. how to react to false accusations of others, where to live, what food to eat, etc.
Here are some practical tips to take care of your worries in each segment.
The First Segment
The First Segment is the one over which you have no control. E.g. how other people are, most changes that occur in the world, etc.
Now think of the years of your life as a number board from 1-100. Each part of each square represents a moment of your time in this life. Don’t read ahead if you cannot imagine this.
All worries of this segment steal this time of yours from you. When such a worry clouds your mind, imagine it coming into the 1-100 number board, and stealing some parts of the board away. You will not get back those areas of the board – ever.
If you imagine this number board and visualise it vanishing in small potions when you worry about things over which you have no control, you will slowly stop letting those worries steal your time. The fact behind the worry may not go away. But you will have control over what you do.
If that does not help at first, make a playlist of your top 10 favourite songs or music. Play the moment you see these worries cloud your mind. Listen to the full playlist.
Third option, if second option does not help. Take a small nap.
All these three options: visualisation, music and sleep work in a simple way – they break the control the worry has over you. When that break occurs, your rational mind takes back control over irrational fears and doubts.
The Second Segment
The Second segment is the one over which you have partial control. E.g. someone at work not doing their share, bad infrastructure in the locality you stay, etc.
For these worries, take a pen and paper and write down what you can do – and then ACT on them. The part of the worries you cannot do anything about, move those worries to the First Segment.
Taking the above examples, if you have a colleague who does not do her/his share of work, you can have a frank discussion with them. Most people have a problem talking to seniors who are causing a problem. If you are in such a situation, you have to ask yourself: what are your options? Can you talk to someone who is senior to your senior? Can you talk to the senior directly? Do not underestimate the power of an open discussion where the idea is to solve the problem, not point fingers.
Here is a practical example from a podcast i listened to a while back:
The person had been made in charge of a project and knew that a colleague of hers was disliked by other team members for not doing his work and gossiping about others.
She had a small meeting with him and said, “I have heard rumours that you do not do your work and say bad things about others. I don’t know if that is true or not and I don’t care about the past. I expect everyone in this project team to give their 100% and if I ever find you not putting in your share of the work or gossiping about others, I will fire you.”
Guess what happened? The bad colleague changed. He put in his 100% in the work, helped other team members and became a role model for others, which in turn prompted him to take care of his inner anxiety and other issues through counselling, issues that had caused him to be lackadaisical about work and gossip about others in the first place.
Similarly, if you live in a bad locality, you can move to a better place. It will involve some effort but after you move, you probably will not have to worry about electricity, water, roads, etc. on a daily basis.
The Third Segment
The Third Segment is the one over which you have absolute control. E.g. how to react to false accusations of others, what food to eat, how to spend your time in worthwhile work, etc.
To take care of these worries, follow the technique used in the second segment. Take a pen-paper and write down what you can and ACT on them.
Taking the first of the examples above. If someone accuses you wrongly of any slight or mistake you were supposed to have made, ask the question, “Are they right?” If the answer is yes, apologise and never repeat the mistake. If the answer is no, then decide what you want to do – have a heart-to-heart but difficult conversation or move these people away from your life?
If these accusations are triggered by loved ones, can you do both? Have a talk and if needed move them away from the centre of your life? Or maybe you can understand what they do or say that disturbs your peace of mind.
To know how to do this, use the 4 Circles of Influence Section on our Evolution U Self-Development Programme, or join our founder, Punnag Bhuyan, in his weekly 3-Day Easy Success Workshop.
These are difficult questions especially when it comes to your friends and family, but if you ask them, you will sooner than later, find a way to solve them. The alternative is to keep worrying about them and letting these worries steal your time and your mental peace.
No one can give you back the time you lost. As such, decide what to worry over and what not to worry over.
The links for you again:
Evolution U: Lifetime access to a programme that will change your life. Or else you get back 3 times the fee you pay for the programme after 5 years.
Easy Success Workshop: A 3-Day 15-minute workshop from our founder, Punnag Bhuyan, and based on his 30-year learnings on life and self-development.