It’s often said that the biggest obstacles we face in life are the ones we put up for ourselves. Unnecessary worry is one of those.

How many times have you denied yourself an opportunity because of worry – maybe you felt like you weren’t ready, or that you didn’t deserve something enough?

If the answer to that question is “never” then you’re very lucky indeed but most people have held themselves back on many an occasion. Personally, towards the end of last year I was holding myself back to the point where I was hardly doing anything new or creative, stuck in a self-imposed rut.

I’m not saying we should try to never worry about anything, because it’s perfectly natural to worry sometimes, and certain things in life will always cause anxiety.

What’s important is to learn to realise when we’re worrying unnecessarily and devise strategies for dealing with it in a productive way.

Those strategies will be unique to you, so you’ll have to work them out yourself. It’s really easy though – all you need to do is take a little “quiet time” whenever you feel worried, frame your worry into a statement and then come up with a logical solution.

For example:
“I’m worried that if I go for a job interview I might mess it up and make myself look stupid”
Strategy: “So I will make sure I’m fully prepared for my interview and perhaps roleplay with a friend so I can practise”

Quite often I find that just turning a vague worry into a definitive statement makes the solution obvious.

Of course, sometimes you really aren’t ready for that new job, or physically fit enough to run that marathon – but at least this way you have some kind of action plan.

Once you have the hang of dealing with minor worries in this way, you should find that you’ll spend less time thinking about doing stuff, and more time actually doing stuff.

You won’t always succeed, but if you’re worrying less and doing more, failure is just a side effect of all the awesome new things you’re experiencing rather than a crushing defeat.

Thanks for reading, I hope you’ll join me in worrying less and doing more! I’d love to hear about your thoughts and experiences so please get in touch :)