How To Stop Worrying – 5 Tips

How to stop worrying is an important soft skill to learn if you want to reduce stress and be the most effective at work and in life. Everyone worries (including me). Issues like…

• “Does my client respect my work?
• “How secure is my job?”
• “Will they extend my contract when it ends?”
• “Will my child get a good enough education?”
• “Will my child get into a good school?”

These are just a few common worries. Worrying is a natural human emotion and everyone experiences it. So it’s ok to worry. What matters is how long you spend worrying in a day. A few minutes is normal. Prolonged worrying (for hours and days) is counterproductive and detrimental to your well-being. Nothing really gets solved or prevented from prolonged worrying. All you’re doing when you’re worried constantly is wasting time and freaking yourself out in the process.

So, how do you stop worrying? Well, telling yourself to stop worrying NEVER helps. I hate it when I share my worries with others and people tell me “Don’t worry. It’ll all work out.” Well, duh, I would’ve stopped if it was that easy. Simply telling myself to not worry does NOT help and can sometimes even aggravate the situation.

Here are five tips I learned that can help anyone stop worrying and be effective again:

1. Take action early – You’re already taking this step. The fact you searched on Google about how to stop worrying or a topic similar to it and are reading this article means you’re taking action to stop worrying. The earlier you take this action, the easier it is to stop worrying because worry can fester in the mind. If you let it be there too long, it can take over your entire thinking regarding everything in your life. You may start with worrying about one thing but the longer you stay worried, the more you’ll start looking at everything in your work and life with a worried lens. This will simply compound the issue and leave you powerless.
2. Know the “root cause” of your worry – What do I mean? For example, if my worry is “does my client respect my work?” the root cause of my worry may be a few things: “I may lose my job if my work is not valued,” or “What if my skills are rusty after taking time off,?” or “Does this mean I’m less marketable in the job market?” Ultimately, this means I’m worried that “if I lose my job, can I find another one easily and with the same or better pay?” Being aware of the fundamental root cause of your worry is necessary in order for you to learn how to stop.
3. Set a low bar for success – Sometimes we worry because we want everything to be perfect and when one thing happens where that perfection is put in question, we immediately start to worry. For example, if I have a bad meeting with my client where she seems to question everything I do, I can start worrying. If my bar for success is perfection, then I can start focusing unnecessarily on one bad meeting right away and start thinking negative “what ifs” – like “what if I lose my job?” Well, in fact, bad meetings happen. No one is ever laid off for one bad meeting. So, when I say set a lower bar for success, what I mean is forgiving yourself for small missteps. They happen to all of us. Instead, look for ways where you are successful already. With one bad client meeting, you had actually four good ones this week. Now your perspective can change. Don’t need to really worry until the boss actually says she’s concerned about your work. She hasn’t ever said this though. Set a low bar for success will help you stop imagining the worst with every little misstep that may happen.
4. Plan for worst case scenario – We worry because we want to avoid the worst case scenario – getting laid off; not being able to pay for mortgage; etc. When we worry, we’re constantly controlled by these possible negative thoughts. Instead of having these thoughts control you, you take control and plan accordingly. What if the worst things did happen to you? I can tell you that you’ll survive somehow. By figuring out what you would do if the worst happens, you can start alleviating the fear of it happening and therefore reduce your worry. For example, if you’re worried about losing your job, figure out what you would do, if you did lose your job. How would you do your job search, etc? If you have found a job once, you’ll find another one again.
5. Let go – Lastly, let go of things that you cannot control. You cannot control whether the company will go through a big layoff, but you can rest in knowing that you’re doing everything you can from numbers one to four above and at some point you just need to say to yourself “come what may.” This will allow you the presence-of-mind to appreciate what you do have today without constantly worrying about what you may lose.

At the end of the day, humans are survivors. We can get through almost anything. We obviously don’t want unpleasant experiences in our lives but worrying about maybe encountering them is also an unpleasant experience in itself. Remember the big picture. Life is short. So do whatever you can to enjoy the life you DO have.