Tag No Worries

What Are You Worried About?

Steve Keating 1 Comment

Is it just me or is there more to worry about these days than ever before? The list of world events and likely, events in your own country, to worry about seems to grow longer every day. Plus, we have our own stuff to worry about. Money, work, family, health, pets, cars, and of course, what’s for dinner. 

Some people seem to enjoy worrying. Or at least “helping” other people worry. They enjoy it so much that when they don’t have anything to worry about they make something up. 

Research shows that 40 million Americans are virtually paralyzed by worry and fear. They worry about everything. 

The same research shows that 40% of what people worry about, never happens. That number seems low to me but even at 40% it’s substantial. 30% of the things people worry about can’t be changed. And the saddest statistic of all is that 20% of our worries are focused on other people’s opinion of us. We worry about what other people think of us. Often people who are merely passing through our lives. What their opinion of us is doesn’t matter one bit and still, we worry. 

But 10% of our worries are legitimate. Health issues lead the way closely followed by financial concerns. In some parts of the world, like the United States for instance, it is issues with health that lead directly to the concern about money. 

So what can we do with those legitimate reasons to worry? 

We’ll likely never completely eliminate the worry but the worst thing we can do is only worry. 

Here’s a few proven effective suggestions from Dale Carnegie’s book, How to Stop Worrying and Start living. 

When facing trouble he says to, ask yourself, “What is the worst that can possibly happen?” Then prepare to accept the worst. Next, we should try to improve on the worst.

Following that suggestion will cause us to take some action or at least think more strategically about the situation. That’s way better than being paralyzed with worry. 

He also suggests that you remind yourself of the exorbitant price you can pay for worry in terms of your health. Worry often begets more worry and it quickly becomes a downward spiral. If we can keep busy and focus on the things we can control it will lessen our level of worry. 

We should never give a problem or situation more worry than it’s worth. Here is a basic technique for analyzing worry to help us avoid that trap. 

  1. Get all the facts.
  2. Weight all the facts — then come to a decision.
  3. Once a decision is reached, act!
  4. Write out and answer the following questions:
    What is the problem?
    What are the causes of the problem?
    What are the possible solutions?
    What is the best possible solution?

Again, those problem solving questions lead directly to action being taken to control the source of our worry. Often they lead us to determine there is no real cause for worry.

Worry is a part of life. The key to a happier and more successful life is to take charge of worry before it takes charge of you. Just remember, that’s a choice for your life that only you can make. 

On a another note… Everyone can use a “nudge” towards success. I’m trying something new on Twitter. It’s called “Super Followers.” For $5 a month, that’s 17 cents a day, people can follow a part of my Twitter stream that is for subscribers only. It features short videos of me discussing leadership topics, sales tips and ideas for better overall relationships. I’m assuming there will be far fewer Super Followers than the million or so people who regularly follow me on Twitter. That will give me the opportunity to answer questions more throughly than I can on regular Twitter. Most of the answers will come in the evening cause we all have day jobs, right? Think of it as ”mentoring on demand!”

My goal with SuperFollowers is to build a better connection, one where I can help more and have a greater impact. I’m hoping it gives me a chance to mentor to a wider audience. It’s still new, we’ll see how it works. It’s a $5 dollar investment that may be the extra “push” you need to get to where you want to be. I’d be honored to be able to help get you there. 

You can find more information by clicking the Super Follow button on my Twitter profile page IN THE TWITTER APP. http://twitter.com/leadtoday Give it a try if you’re so inclined, and if you are, be sure to let me know how I’m doing and how I can be of even more help.

Day-tight Compartments

Steve Keating 4 Comments

The world is being overtaken with worry. Well…that’s not exactly right, it would be more accurate to say the world has been overtaken with worry. We have more to worry about than ever before. 

Or do we?

I think it’s good to keep “things” in perspective so let’s look at a few numbers. 40% of the things most people worry about never happen. 30% of the things people worry about are completely out of their control. They couldn’t change them if they tried. 20% of our worries come straight out of someone else’s opinion and have nothing to do with fact. 

If I’m counting my fingers and toes correctly that adds up to 90%! 90% of our worrying is a complete waste of time and energy. 90% of our worrying does nothing but pummel our joy and enthusiasm. We receive no return on that investment of time and energy so stop investing in worry. 

So what about the other 10%?

In Dale Carnegie’s book “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” (the greatest book every written on the subject of controlling worry) he provides a set of principles that are life changing. One of them has served me particularly well. It’s one of the first principles in the book and it says to “live in day-tight compartments.” 

That principle simply says don’t worry about what happened yesterday or what might happen tomorrow. It says to focus all your energy on what is happening right now because that’s what you have the greatest chance of controlling. 

Take the pandemic for instance. I have no idea (does anybody?) how this ends. I have no idea what happens tomorrow or next week. I just know what I can do today to give myself and my family the best chance of staying healthy…so that’s where I’m focusing my energy. 

I have a bunch of big presentations coming up in the next few weeks. If I tried to focus on all of them I’d probably go crazy. So I’m only focused on my next one. That’s the presentation that has to be the best. Once I’m done with that one then it’s the next one that must be the best. The fact that some of these are on the same day or consecutive days makes no difference, they are all in their own “tight compartments” and they will happen one at a time. So why worry about one a couple weeks away?

I know the first thought of many people when they hear “don’t worry” is “easier said than done.” Well EVERYTHING worth doing is easier said than done. But here’s another bit of advice from Mr. Carnegie’s book that might help.

He says when facing trouble to do these three things:

  • Ask yourself what the worst possible outcome is if you can’t solve your problem.
  • Mentally prepare to accept the worst if necessary.
  • Then calmly work to improve upon the worst possible outcome.

I’ve found very few antidotes to worry that are more effective than using your time and energy to solve the issue that’s causing the worry. Even if you’re unsuccessful you’ll have eliminated a great deal of worry from your life. 

So worry if you must but don’t worry about yesterday, that’s now completely out of your control. And don’t borrow worry from tomorrow, just deal with it as it comes. There is at least a 40% chance that it never does. 

Submarine Your Stress!

Steve Keating 4 Comments

Most people have at least heard the phase “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” It’s not just a saying, it’s actually the title of one of the greatest books ever written. It was written in 1936 by the legendary Dale Carnegie. It has been a best seller forever, translated into more languages than virtually any other book. 

It is truly a life changing book, to this very day. 

But many people who know Dale Carnegie’s work well would tell you it’s not his most impactful book. They would say it’s the book Carnegie people call “the worry book.” It’s official title is “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.” 

It is truly a masterpiece of tactical insights into how to control worry in your life. 

The insight, or principle as Mr. Carnegie called them, that has made the biggest difference for me is the very first one discussed in the book. 

The principle says that to avoid worry we should “live in day-tight compartments.”

A submarine is divided into compartments so that when a problem develops in one compartment the other compartments can be sealed off from the trouble. Dale Carnegie suggested that we live our lives as a submarine is constructed. 

Live each day as a separate compartment. Don’t let yesterday’s troubles seep into today and never let tomorrow’s potential worries (which often never happen anyway) leak into today’s opportunity for success.

As simple and as easy as that sounds it is anything but. It requires a steely discipline and faith that today’s good can drown out yesterday’s not-so-good. 

Here’s one thing I’ve found that helps me to live in day-tight compartments. I don’t just compartmentalize my days, I put many things into their own compartments. 

I work hard to keep my work life separate from my family life. As bad as it is to let one bad work interaction negatively affect the next work interaction it’s absolutely terrible, tragic really, to let something bad that happened at work have a negative impact on my family. 

There is never a good reason to “take out” my work frustrations on the people who are far more important to me than anything to do with my job. By compartmentalizing those two areas of my life that’s much less likely to happen. 

I once had a participant in a Dale Carnegie Class tell the class that he passed over a long bridge on his way to and from work each day. He said that at the end of each work day he packed up all his worries and put them in a box. On his way home as he crossed the bridge he rolled down his window and tossed the box out the window and into the river he was crossing over. The problems and the worry they caused never came home with him. 

He went on to say that sometimes the box would be waiting for him on the bridge when he was returning to work but that was okay, he was back at work and that’s where his work worries belonged. 

If you want to attempt living in day-tight compartments then you need to find your own metaphorical bridge. Maybe you’ll need several of them, that’s perfectly okay.

This much I can tell you; developing the discipline of living in day-tight compartments will do more to relieve stress in your life than anything else you can do. There is enough stress for most of us in a single day, we don’t need to be dragging stress from yesterday or tomorrow into today. Most of us can deal with the weight of stress from one day, it’s when the days start to pile on that we have real trouble.

Live in day-tight compartments and the worries of life will find it very hard to gang up on you! 

By the way….read the book.