What are you worried about? What hangs over your head?
Inside the answer to this question, you will find an opportunity for growth, growth away from stagnation, toward empowerment. What you are worried about can highlight where you are stuck. It is where you hold on to unproductive thoughts and spend energy best used elsewhere.
When we worry, we actually devote time and energy to what we are trying to avoid rather than what we really want. Worry keeps you small and helpless, rather than big and bold. What would happen if your time and energy went into creating what you really wanted? What then? Progress? Growth? Peace? Wow!
So, what if instead of worries, we had concern. And what if we took action to address our concerns? We can address them in a couple ways.
- Decide how much control have, or you should have over a situation. Ask yourself, what do I have control over here, what do I not have control over? What is mine, what isn’t? And then ask yourself: what small positive action can I take with regard to what I do have control over? And then take action, regularly. Make it a habit, a daily habit! Build off of your little wins.Focus on the process. Bring your lunch box, this is blue collar work. The worry may want to steal your energy again, but this time you won’t let it. You may need to create some accountability around the new habits, especially if this worry has existed for a while. Get an accountability partner or hire a coach.
- The other option is to let go of what you do not have control over. Because worry is action-less, it is an unwinable battle to try to control things via worrying. It’s also completely unwinable to worry about things you don’t have control over. Disengage from the unwinable. The fix here is to be authentic and effortful over what you do have control over. This is time well spent.
These things work! Taking action is empowering because you get to make a choice and exert some control over the situation. This annihilates the victim/worrier position, especially when you start to see that your actions add up. You build the case and provide proof to yourself that you are a capable person and in charge of your life. Ironically, letting go is also an empowered action. If you have done your part, and done your honest best, then a feeling of freedom emerges. Think, I am responsible for me.
If you do slip back into worry, don’t worry. Simply use it as cue to to remind you that you can either accept (and even be grateful) for what is, or you can take a positive action to address your concern. Step into empowered living! Ahh, it feels good.
In truth and love,
Drew