| reading time – 2 mins |

The first part of our troublesome trifecta of worry, fear and guilt.

I would hate to hazard a guess about the percentage of people affected by worry in the world, but I bet it’s an emotion thats touched everyone at some point. It’s all pervasive. There’s no doubt about it, worry is a powerful emotion. Yet, I’m struggling to think of a positive reason for worrying for the majority of us.

I’m a born worrier. I over-analyse EVERYTHING. I don’t know about you, but if left unchecked, I can create a huge range of hypothetical situations and possible outcomes, just so that I’m “ready”. In reality, all I’m doing is wasting time imagining worst case scenarios when I could be spending my time more proactively!

We know that worry is in the mind. Therefore if we can manage our thought process, we can manage the worry, such that it doesn’t consume us entirely. Personally, I have to work hard to manage my worries, but it’s always worth it.

There are three facts that we should remember about worry:

1) Worry changes nothing.  

The worrier merely spends more time thinking about all of the possibilities: “What could go wrong?” This results in you being in a negative state, with energy levels not appropriate for taking positive and constructive action! This is time you’ll never get back! What’s worse is that your worried state can potentially shift onto other people (clients, staff, family members).

2) There are only three things you can worry about.  

Events in the past, events in the present and events in the future.

3) Worry exists only in your own mind.  

It is not a tangible thing. You can’t eat it, smell it, taste it, touch it. You can only think it.

Let’s look again at the first one: worry changes nothing. So why worry? Answer this question for yourself and you will start to see the real underlying issues. Deal with those issues and you will start to see the worry disappear.

Ok, let’s deal with number two. Our logical mind tells us that worry won’t change anything in the past. It might still have some lingering impacts on the present and the future, but we can’t change what’s happened. Let’s put that to bed right away!

As for worrying about the present. The now…. Well, that now has already been and gone whilst you were worrying about it, and is now the past (and we’ve already dealt with worrying about the past!)

Of course, the greatest worries of all are about the unknown. Their root cause is fear, which I deal with another day. When “the future” comes, you will have the power and ability to deal with it. This is the point that you can take positive action to change the outcomes.

Coaching can of course be a very effective way of understanding our thought processes and replacing them with positive and constructive processes instead. There is no “one size fits all” answer. I’ll never tell you to “pull yourself together”. It just doesn’t work like that, and if you could – you would have done already – amiright?!

Try this exercise when you’re starting to feel consumed by worry:

Q: Will worrying about this get me the outcome I desire?

(The answer will most probably be “no”!)

So let’s take it a step further:

Q: What is the main focus of your worry?
Q: What is the benefit of your worrying? (There’s always a purpose or benefit to our behaviour)
Q: What could you do if you weren’t worrying any longer?