How to Crowd Worry Out of Your Mind

One thing I have learnt so far from my experiences and from my elders is that it is difficult to worry while you are busy doing something that requires planning and thinking.

Why does such a simple thing as keeping busy help to drive out anxiety? Because of a law---one of the most fundamental laws ever revealed by psychology. And that law is: that it is utterly impossible for any human mind, no matter how brilliant , to think of more than one thing at any given time. You don’t believe it? Very well, then, let’s try an experiment.

Suppose you lean right back now, close your eyes, and try, at the same instant, to think of the statue of liberty and of what you plan to do tomorrow morning. ( Go ahead, try it.)

You found out, didn’t you, that you could focus on either thought in arm, but never on both simultaneously.?

Well, the same thing is true in the field of emotions. We cannot be pepped up and enthusiastic about doing something exciting and feel dragged down by worry at the very same time. One kind of emotion drives out the other.

Any psychiatrist will tell you that work----keeping busy---is one of the best anaesthetics even known for sick nerves.

When we are not busy, our minds tend to become a near-vacuum. Nature rushes in to fill the vacant mind. With what? Usually with emotions. Why? Because emotions of worry, fear, hate, jealousy, and envy are driven by primeval vigour and the dynamic energy of the jungle. Such emotions are so violent that they tend to drive out of our minds all peaceful, happy thoughts and emotions.

The remedy for worry is to get completely occupied doing something constructive.

George Bernard Shaw said, “ The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not”. So don’t bother to think about it! Spit oon your hands and get busy. Your blood will start circulating; your mind will start ticking- and pretty soon this whole positive upsurge of life in your body will drive worry from your mind. Get busy. Keep busy. It’s the cheapest kind of medicine there is on this earth-and on of the best.

Basic techniques in analyzing worry

Rule 1: Get the facts. Remember that Dean Hawkes of Columbia University said that “half the worry in the world is caused by people trying to make decisions before they have sufficient knowledge on’ which to base a decision.”

Rule 2: After carefully weighing all the facts , come to a decision.

Rule 3: Once a decision is carefully reached, act! Get busy carrying out your decision--- and dismiss all anxiety about the outcome.

Rule 4: when you, or any of your associates are tempted to worry about a problem, write out and answer the following questions:

1. What is the problem?
2. What is cause of the problem?
3. What are the possible solution?
4. What is the best solution?

How to eliminate 50 percent of your Business worries

If you are a Business man, you are probably saying to yourself right now: “The title of this post is absurd and ridiculous. I have been running my business for 19 years; and I certainly know the answers if anybody does. The idea of anybody trying to tell me how I can eliminate 50 percent of my business worries—it’s absurd!”

Since worry is so serious, wouldn’t you be satisfied if I could help you eliminate even ten percent of your worries?...Yes? …Good!

Here they are, apply these questions to your business problems:

1. What is your problem?
2. What is the CAUSE of the problem?
3. What are all the possible solutions to the problem?
4. What solution do you suggest?

How to analyze and solve worry problems

We must equip ourselves to deal with different kinds of worries by learning three basic steps of problem analysis. The three steps are:

1. Get the facts.
2. Analyze the facts
3. Arrive at a decision—and then act on that decision.

Get the facts. Why is it so important to get the facts? Because unless we have the facts we can’t possibly even attempt to solve our problems intelligently. Half the worry in the world is caused by people trying to make decisions before they have sufficient knowledge on which to base a decision.

If a man will devote his time to securing facts in an impartial, objective way, his worries will usually evaporate in the light of knowledge.

That is not an east task when we are worried. When we are worried, our emotions are riding high. But here are two ideas that I have found helpful when trying to step aside from my problems, in order to see the facts in a clear, objective manner.

1. When trying to get the facts, I pretend that I am collecting this information not for myself, but for some other person. This helps me to take a cold, impartial view of the evidence. This helps me eliminate my emotions.
2. While trying to collect the facts about the problem that is worrying me, I sometimes pretend that I am a lawyer preparing to argue the other side of the issue. In other words, I try to get all the facts myself---all the facts that are damaging to my wishes, all the facts I don’t like to face.

Then I write down both my side of the case and the other side of the case---and I generally find that the truth lies somewhere in between these two extremities.

Problem well stated is a problem half solved.

So I banish about 90 percent of my worries by taking these four steps:

1. Writing down precisely what I am worrying about.
2. Writing down what I can do about it.
3. Deciding what to do.
4. Starting immediately to carry out that decision.

Once you have made a careful decision based on facts, go into action. Don’t stop to reconsider. Don’t begin to hesitate, worry and retrace your steps. Don’t lose yourself in self-doubting which begets other doubts. Don’t keep looking back over your shoulder.

Why don’t you employ Galen litchfield’s technique to one of your worries right now?

Here is question no.1---What am I worrying about?

Here is question no.2---What can I do about it?

Here is question no.3---Here is what I am going to do about it.

And finally question no.4----When am I going to start doing it?

3.What Worry Can Do to You

“Business men who do not know how to fight worry die young”

“Fear causes worry. Worry makes you tense and nervous and affects the nerves of your stomach and actually changes the gastric juices from normal to abnormal and often lead to stomach ulcers.”

According to a survey more than a third of 176 business executives tested suffered from one of the three ailments peculiar to high tension living- heart disease, digestive-tract ulcers, and high blood pressure.

Think of it. A third of them are wrecking their bodies with these ailments even before they reach 45. What price success! And they aren’t buying success. Can any man possibly be a success who is paying for business advancement with stomach ulcers and heart trouble? What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his health.

Worry can put you into a wheel chair with rheumatism and arthritis. Worry can also cause tooth decay. Unpleasant emotions such as worry, fear, nagging ….. may upset the body’s calcium balance and tooth-decay.

Worry is like the constant drip, drip, drip of water; and the constant drip, drip, drip of worry often drives men to insanity and suicide.

Do you love life? Do you want to live long and enjoy good health? Here is how you can do it. Those who keep the peace of their inner selves in the midst of the tumult of the modern city are immune from nervous diseases.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. So rule 3 is:

REMIND YOURSELF OF THE EXORBITANT PRICE YOU CAN PAY FOR WORRY IN TERMS OF YOUR HEALTH. “BUSINESS MEN WHO DO NOT KNOW HOW TO FIGHT WORRY DIE YOUNG.”

2. A MAGIC FORMULA FOR SOLVING WORRY SITUATIONS

This anti-worry technique has been in use for more than a century. It is simple. Anyone can use it. It consists of 3 steps:

Step 1: I analysed the situation fearlessly and honestly and figured out what was the worst that could possibly happen as a result of my this failure.

Step 2: After figuring out what was the worst that could possibly happen, I reconciled, myself, to accepting it, if necessary.

Step 3: From that time on, I calmly devoted my time and energy to trying to improve upon the worst which I had already accepted mentally.

When we have accepted the worst, we have nothing more to lose. And that automatically means –we have everything to gain!

So rule 2 is:

1. Ask yourself, “What is the worst that can possibly happen?”
2. Prepare to accept it if you have to.
3. Then calmly proceed to improve.

1. Live in “day-tight Compartments”

Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at t a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

Shut off the past! Let the dead past bury its dead…Shut out the yesterdays which have lighted fools the way to dusty death…The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter. Shut off the future as tightly as the past....the future is today…..There is no tomorrow. The day of man’s salvation is now. Waste of energy, mental distress, nervous worries dog the steps of a man who is anxious about the future…..Shut close, then, the great fore and aft bulkheads, and prepare to cultivate the habit of life of ‘day-tight compartments’.”

This does not mean that we should stop putting any effort to prepare for tomorrow? No, not at all. But the best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm, on doing today’s work superbly today. That is the only way you can prepare for the future.

“Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

By all means take thought for the tomorrow, yes, careful thought and planning and preparation. But have no anxiety.

Good thinking deals with causes and effects and leads to logical, constructive planning; bad thinking frequently leads to tension and nervous breakdowns. Just listen to this advice. ‘ I want you to think of your life as an hourglass. You know there are thousands of grains of sand in the top of the hourglass; and they all pass slowly and evenly through the narrow neck in the middle. Nothing you or I could do woulod make more than one grain of sand pass through this narrow neck without impairing the hourglass. You and I and everyone else are like this hourglass. When we start in the morning, there are hundreds of tasks which we feel we must accomplish that day, but if we do not take them one at a time and let them pass through the day slowly and evenly, as do the grains of sand passing through the narrow neck of the hourglass, then we are bound t break our own physical or mental structure.

Remember “Everyday is a new life to a wise man.”

SHUT THE IRON DOORS ON THE PAST AND THE FUTURE. LIVE IN DAY-TIGHT COMPLARTMENTS.

SALUTATION TO THE DAWN

Look to this day!

For it is, the very life of life.

In its brief course

Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:

The bliss of growth

The glory of action

The splendour of achievement,

For yesterday is but a dream

And tomorrow is only a vision, but today well lived makes yesterday a dream of happiness

And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day!

Such is the salutation of the dawn.