Excessive worrying about the future can rob you of your personal power and places your focus on areas out of your control.
First off, this isn’t talking about major life-changing events that you know might happen. Life can throw you curveballs, and even in the worst situations, you can take steps to lower the amount of your anxiety and worry. You can’t erase all the anxiety about the future away, and I would argue that you probably shouldn’t. If harnessed correctly, it can motivate you to shoot for excellence and improve your circumstances in life.
This post focuses on what you can do when you become obsessed with a minor issue, and you let worry creep in and won’t go away. When that happens, what can you do to get yourself in a better frame of mind before the nagging thoughts impact your mood? Here are some practical ways you can soothe the hamster wheel before it spirals out of control.
1. Shift gears and think about the worst-case scenario from a realistic standpoint
Rather than give think about it from a perspective of scarcity and dread, think about what the realistic impacts will be if what you worry about actually happens. Recently a business dealt I was involved in could’ve easily went south. This caused me a bit of stress that lasted several hours. What brought me out of it was looking at what position I would be in if it did go south. (It ended up working out okay in the end.)
I wouldn’t be much worse off. I may not have been in a better financial position, but I wouldn’t be worse off. Also, realistically, I didn’t gain anything, just the prospect for something gained. Then I asked myself – how else could I acquire something just as good? I came up with several ways, both of which would involve my learning key skills in life. If the deal didn’t go through, I have alternative methods to fall back on. Thinking about it this way brought me out of the scarcity mindset that I was wrapped up in and into a realistic way of viewing my situation and position.
2. Remember that anxiety over possible events robs you of your personal power
No matter what happens, you will be okay, you will handle it, and you will adapt and survive. Being in a worrisome state of mind takes away your personal power and places it in the hands of outside forces out of your control. As the saying goes, sometimes poop happens in life. But you will roll with the punches and be okay in the end.
Does that anxiety involve other people or events? Remember that you cannot control them, and you can control how you react to them. In a way, worrying over things that might not even happen is a futile effort to control that which you really cannot. But even when things go wrong in life, keeping a calm, cool head will help you respond to life’s poop in a better, more balanced way.
3. Remember the internal locus of control that you can take charge of at any time
In the late Stephen Covey classic, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, Dr. Covey talks about Internal and External locus of control. People that are controlled by outside forces have little personal power. But those who are internally directed, are.
If you must anticipate what can go wrong, then do so, but know that even if stuff does go wrong, you will survive and thrive. Be internally directed and think through ways to thrive even in situations that are less than ideal. Also, if they do happen, focus on the lessons and learnings that you can gain from it. What can you do to improve and grow from the negative events? This is what it means to be guided by your internal locus of control.