how to worry properly
“Our fatigue is often caused not by work but by worry…” Dale Carnegie
I have confession; I am a worrier! I worry about virtually everything across most areas of my life; will I find a parking space; will I be late; will I remember to do X, Y, or Z… I could go on, but I won’t!
The reason for sharing this is that I want to challenge the view that worrying is wrong, or a waste of time; sometimes it is, but sometimes trying not to worry can drain our energy, keeping us stuck and unable to move forward. If you are starting your own business or transitioning to using your NLP skills to help others, there are bound to be worries, or concerns. The worries are not the problem; the effect the worries have on you is the thing to focus on.
I also know that there are a lot of worriers out there; Are you a worrier?
Here are two brilliant techniques to help you (and trust me I’ve used them a lot, so I know they work)!
For the little worries
This one I call the worry box and it’s simple to use for all types of worries, including your business ones.
Grab a smallish box and seal it up, then cut a slit in the top. You can write ‘worry box’ on it if you like. Have some small pieces of paper next to the box and for the next 2 weeks, every time you have a small worry, write it down on a piece of paper and post it through the slit.
After 2 weeks, open the box and read through the worries, asking yourself how many of these actually came true/actually happened. It’s probably not going to be many of them.
The point here is twofold; once you have written it down you can move on from it and, realising that most of the things you worry about do not actually happen helps to lower your worry levels overall.
For the bigger worries
This is all about worrying properly instead of trying not to worry about a certain thing. I am sure you’ve had situations where you’ve tried not to worry about something, putting it to the back of your mind, only for it to pop back up. Or you’ve not been able to focus on anything else because this worry won’t go away.
Start with the worry, and tune into what, specifically you are worried about, and what you think might happen. Then ask yourself, ‘what if it did, what would I do? And if this happened, then what would I do’? Keep going until you get to what you believe is the worst-case scenario, asking each time what you would do if that did happen. You will find that you are always able to come up with some form of action you would take in each scenario.
Just knowing this enables you to move your focus from worrying about it to acting.
So, what will you do with the worries you have about coaching this week? Why not try one of these techniques and see how you get on.
Take care.
Jo
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If you feel like you could benefit from a little extra support, why not set up a complimentary mentoring session with me to see if there’s a good match for one of my 1:1 or group mentoring packages. If you feel like you could benefit from a little extra support, why not set up a complimentary mentoring session with me to see if there’s a good match for one of my 1:1 or group mentoring packages. You can find more details about the mentoring packages I offer here