How Not to Worry

"Never say anything to yourself you don't want to come true." - Brian Tracy

Are you worrying more these days? Worrying about whether you'll still have a job and be able to pay bills? Worried about politics, the economy, racial injustice, climate change?

All that's understandable, it just doesn't help. As the saying goes, why buy trouble?

If you find yourself mentally doomscrolling, ask yourself this important question from Eckhart Tolle, "Focus down to this moment. Do you have a problem NOW?”

Chances are, in THIS moment, you're fine. You're healthy. Your loved ones are healthy. You can pay your bills, get outside for a walk, spend time with friends/family, listen to music.

Truly imprint and appreciate that - instead of conjuring up worst case scenarios that may never happen but that ruin your mood in this moment.

If worries start creeping in, read these quotes. They can help you focus on all that's right in your world right now vs. projecting what might happen next week, next month, next year.

40 Quotes to Stop Worrying and Focus on What's Right, Right Here, Right Now

1. "You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending." - C.S. Lewis
2. "Your greatest work of art is the story you tell about yourself." - Tara Conklin
3. "If you keep saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet." - Isaac Bashevis Singer
4. "When you can't do what you do ... do what you can." - Jon Bon Jovi
5. "Drag your thoughts away from your troubles ... by the ears, by the heels, any way you can manage it. It's the healthiest thing a body can do." - Mark Twain
6. "NOW is the whole enchilada." - Esther Hicks
7. "Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier." - Colin Powell
8. "Panic is a choice, and so is productive generosity." - Seth Godin
9. "Life consists of what a man is thinking all day." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
10. "Worry is like a rocking chair; it gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere." - (my mom had this embroidered on a pillow.)
11. "If you're searching for that one person who will change your life, look in the mirror." - Roman Price
12. "Life may give you a cactus, you don't have to sit on it." - Joyce Meyer
13. "Anyone who consistently makes you feel bad is not helping you get better." Sam Horn
14. "Hold the vision, not the circumtances." - Mary Morrissey
15. "When I dare to use my strength in service of my vision, then it becomes less important whether I am afraid." - Audre Lorde
16. "Action is the antidote to despair." - Joan Baez
17. "To affect the quality of the day, that is the art of life." - Henry David Thoreau
18. "If you want things to be different, perhaps the answer is to be different yourself." - Norman Vincent Peale
19. "We cannot cure the world of sorrow, but we can choose to live in joy. You've got to find the force inside you." - Joseph Campbell
20. "It is never too late to be what you might have been." - George Eliot
21. "I don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains. Go outside, to the field, enjoy nature and the sunshine. Think of all the beauty that's still left in and around you. Be happy." - Anne Frank
22. "Perhaps we never really appreciate the here and now until it is challenged." - Anne Morrow Lindbergh
23. "If you are unhappy, you are too high up in your mind." -Carl Jung"
24. "Above all, be the heronine of your life, not the victim." - Nora Ephron
25. "Live in day-tight compartments." - Dale Carnegie
26. "There are always two voices sounding in our ears - the voice of fear and the voice of confidence. One is the clamor of the senses, the other is the whispering of the higher self." - Charles B. Newcomb
27. "Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love." - Brene Brown
28. "I am in love with hope." - Mitch Albom
29. “There are always flowers who want to see them." - Henry Matisse
30. "Choose to be a spy for hope." - Katherine Peterson
31. "Guard your good mood." - Meryl Streep
32. "Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." - Abraham Lincoln
33. "When I was a little boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." - Mr. Rogers
34. "The time is always right to do what is right." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
35. “You have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” – Jane Goodall
36. "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." - Wayne Dyer
37. “All I know is my life is better when I assume people are doing their best.” - Brene Brown
38. "We are the White Knight we're waiting for." - Sam Horn
39. “We are better than we think and not yet what we want to be.” – Nikki Giovanni
40. "Some people dance in the rain, others just get wet." - Dolly Parton

And this gem from Clarissa Pinkola Estes:

“I too have felt despair in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world.

Do not focus on that. Do not make yourself ill with overwhelm.

Let us be a light for each other and not lose heart.

Remember we were made for these times.”

Moving forward, what will you keep a chair for?

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Sam Horn is the CEO of the Intrigue Agency. Her 3 TEDx talks and 9 books - Wash Post bestseller Got Your Attention?, Tongue Fu, POP! and SOMEDAY is Not a Day in the Week - have have been featured in NY Times, on NPR, and presented to Intel, NASA, Cisco.