To a degree, everyone worries, some people worry in nearly every situation. Whether things are good or bad, they worry that this situation would surely get worse.Understand that worrying is a drain on your energy and enthusiasm and if uncontrolled, it can be a terrible burden to your existence.
How you handle worry can determine whether you are going to live a happy, normal life or one filled with neurosis, depression and negativism.
The good news is that any situation which can be used to generate worry can also be used to generate hope.
Psychologists have found that worrying is simply a matter of choice unrelated to the event in our lives. In fact, some people experience worry more than 10 times as often as others, and, not surprisingly, they reduce their likelihood of happiness by 64%.
Here are the three steps to stop worrying:
1. Concentrate your energy on today. Effort that can be used to solve today's problems is wasted when you worry about tomorrow; and to make matters worse, most things that people worry about never materialize.
James A. Garfield, the 20th President of the United States, once said," I have had many troubles in my life, but the worse of them never came." Chances are that if today's problems are handled in an efficient manner, they will not only make you more confident to handle tomorrow's problems, but also may have a minimizing effect on those problems.
Determine if you have immediate cause for worrying. Ask yourself, "Can the things I am worried about materialize?" What will happen if they do? Do they represent real dangers? Can something be done about it today? If nothing, then force yourself to attend to matters at hand.
2. Assuming that you have cause for worrying: what is the worst that can happen? Lose your health? Your job? Is your family, prestige, or self-esteem in danger? It is of particular importance to the final step that you identify the worst that can happen. If this identification process indicates no real dangers facing you, then concentrate on the real problems of today, rather than the imaginary ones of tomorrow.
3. After considering the worst that can happen, then now is the time to do something about your worries by contemplating methods of handling them. When real danger faces you, more good can be accomplished by outlining alternative courses of action rather than worrying about the dangers, and when no alternative exists then face the problem squarely.
When you get caught up in your worries and anxieties, take these three steps: live for today; consider the worst that can happen; and then do something about it. You will find yourself living a happier life.
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