Day 85. Replace worry with action

Alfred E. Neuman. Official MAD Magazine mascot and my childhood hero taught me one thing: there’s nothing good that comes from worrying.

And don’t we all have plenty to worry about? Health, finances, jobs, retirement, family, friends, sales quotas, clients, proposals, presentations, the list can go on and on and on. The odd thing I find in human nature is how many embrace worry, they seemingly welcome it into their lives. It’s like my deceased wife liked to say: I worry more if I have nothing to worry about. I would just smile and laugh and say: let’s do something, right now.

What does worry do for most people? It paralyzes them. Their mind spins in a never-ending “do-loop”. Round and round it goes and nothing gets done, nothing moves ahead, nothing gets accomplished. We feel overwhelmed. 

My favorite movie of all time is “What About Bob”. A great, belly-laughing comedy it taught me everything I needed to know about handling any situation and it wasn’t worry about it. Baby steps. Two words that altered how my family worked together from that day forward. Baby steps. DO SOMETHING, but just take baby steps. To mix metaphors, I always ask my sales classes: How do you eat an elephant?” The answer is simple: “One bite at a time.” Baby steps.

I had a great rep that worked for me named Jeff. He had a great many reasons to let worry overcome him. This particular month, after caring for his family, he came in with one week to make quota. As his manager, he came to me to see if he could get quota relief, “blue birds”, he wanted to share his worry and make it mine too. Enter “take action” and “baby steps”. I told him, just pick up the phone and dial. ONLY talk to decision makers, make dials, don’t follow-up with emails, or leave voice mails, just talk to decision makers for this week.  He focused solely on dialing, not worrying and he exceeded quota for the month.

Today's short excerpt from the book 100 ways to Motivate Yourself by Steve Chandler reminds us all of the need to quit worrying, do something, take baby steps. I make it sound like simple stuff but, consider this: “Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.” — Charles Mingus

Steve’s book makes motivating oneself seem simple. Today I challenge you to look at how you handle your problems. Write down each worry you have. What baby step can you take for each worry? Once you’ve made your list – go do something!

I hope you enjoy each shared chapter at the start of your day –

Matt

85. Replace worry with action

Don’t worry. Or rather, don’t just worry. Let worry change into action. When you find yourself worrying about something, ask yourself the action question, “What can I do about this right now?” And then do something. Anything. Any small thing.

Most of my life, I spent my time asking myself the wrong question every time I worried. I asked myself, “What should I be feeling about this?” I finally discovered that I was much hap-pier when I started asking, instead, “What can I do about this?” If I am worried about the conversation I had with my wife last night, and how unfair I might have been to say the things I said, I can ask myself, “What can I do about that right now?”

By putting the question into the action arena, a lot of pos-sibilities will occur to me: 1) I could send her flowers; 2) I could call her to tell her I was concerned about how I left things; 3) I could leave a nice little note somewhere for her; or 4) I could go see her to make things right. All of these possibilities are ac-tions, and when I act on something, the worry goes away.

We often hear the phrase “worry it to death.” But that phrase doesn’t reflect what really happens when we worry. It would be great if we could worry something to death. When it dies, we could dispose of the body and be done with it. But when we worry, we don’t worry a thing to death, we worry it to life. Our worrying makes the problem grow. And most of the time, we worry it into a grotesque kind of life, a kind of Frankenstein’s monster that frightens us beyond all reason.

I once came up with a system for action that helped turn my worrying habits completely around. I would list the five things that I was worried about—perhaps they were four proj-ects at work and the fifth was my son’s trouble he was having with a certain teacher. I would then decide to spend five minutes on each problem doing something, anything. By deciding this, I knew I was committing myself to 25 minutes of activity, but no more so it didn’t feel at all overwhelming.

Then I could make a game of it. On project one, a semi-nar workbook deadline for a new course, I’d spend five minutes writing it. Maybe I only got the first two pages done, but it felt great. It felt like I’d finally started it.

Then on item number two, a meeting I knew I had to have with a client over a sticky contract issue, I would call his office and schedule the meeting and put it in my calendar. That, too, felt good.

My third worry, a stack of correspondence I needed to an-swer, I would take five minutes sorting and stacking and put-ting them into a folder that was separate from the other clut-ter on my desk. That felt satisfying, too. The fourth item was a travel arrangement that had to be worked out. I’d take no more than five minutes looking at my calendar and leaving a voice mail for my travel agent to fax me some alternatives on the trip.

Finally, on the matter of my son, I would pull out a piece of paper and write a short letter to his teacher expressing my concern for him, my support of her efforts, and my desire to arrange a meeting quickly, so all three of us could sit down to-gether and make some agreements.

All of that took 25 minutes. And the five things that were worrying me the most were no longer worrying me. I could then go back anytime later and work them to completion. If something is worrying you, always do something about it. It doesn’t have to be the big thing that will make it disappear. It can be any small thing. But the positive effect it will have on you will be enormous.

Anything that worries you should be acted on, not just thought about. Don’t be scared about the action; you can make it very small and easy, as long as you take action. Even small ac-tions will chase away your fears. Fear has a hard time coexisting with action. When there’s action, there’s no fear. When there’s fear, there’s no action.

The next time you’re worried about something, ask yourself, “What small thing can I do right now?” Then do it. Remember not to ask, “What could I possibly do to make this whole thing go away?” That question does not get you into action at all.

Acting on your worries frees you up for other things. It re-moves fear and uncertainty from your life and puts you back in control of creating what you want. Just do it.