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Welcome to this week's You Are Destined For Greatness. I'm coming to you from our round pen here today with my two-year-old Philly, or mare, or female horse. We use a round pen for initial training and usually the first few rides on a horse. Today I want to talk to you about worrying. Worrying is something that we all do, but a lot of times we don't all pay a lot of attention to it. And here's why we should.
First of all, let's define what worrying is. Worrying is thinking thoughts about things that we don't want to happen that could happen in the future. Say that again: Worrying is thinking thoughts about things that we do not want to have happen, about things that could happen in the future. So why don't we want to be worrying? There are several reasons. My friend Ron Chomko said worrying is a use of time, and I believe him. There are several reasons why, and here are a few of them, okay?
First of all, worrying leads to stress, anxiety, overwhelm, and those things have proven to have negative impacts on our health—on our cardiovascular health, on our sleep habits, on our obesity, and on all kinds of negative impacts on our nervous system, our skeletal system, and throughout our physical health. It has a negative impact as a result of excessive worrying. That's number one.
Second of all, when I'm checked out... When you're worrying, you're kind of not present. You're not thinking in the present moment. You're thinking about the future, right? What could happen that you don't want to have happen? When you're worrying, you're not showing up in a way that you can have a positive impact on the people around you, or in all of the relationships. If you're a parent, you're not really there for your kids as much as you could be, or in your relationship with your spouse, or any of the people—the relationships—that you care about. So, you're not able to participate and contribute at the level that you probably want to if you're worrying.
The next thing about worrying is that when you're worrying, like I said, we're just kind of frozen, okay? We're not really doing anything. And when I worry, I can feel it. I can feel the tension in my head. Sometimes I get a headache, and I'm just kind of frozen there thinking like it's almost in, sometimes in fear of just worrying about what could happen in the future.
The good news is, hey, there's a solution to solve worry. There's actually a three-step formula that I'm going to give you today to solve worrying, and this is not my formula. It actually came from Dale Carnegie in1944 in a book he wrote, and so I'm going to share that with you today. My example that I'm going to give as I explain the steps is me worrying about the first ride on my horse.
So if I'm worrying, and I've worried a little bit, not excessively, but I've worried about my first ride, okay? When I'm worrying about that, riding this horse for the first time, I'm not doing anything but thinking about all the things that could go wrong, okay? Which is not helping me, and it gives me a headache.
So the first step here—the first steps I'm going to lay out—step one is to determine the worst-case scenario about what it is that you're worrying about. Okay, so think whatever that is and determine the worst-case scenario. What's the worst thing that could happen? Okay, so in my case, I'm deciding that the worst case could happen is I could fall off when I go to get on this horse for the first time. Okay, that's the worst case that I can think of.
Step two is to resolve to accept that if the worst-case scenario happens, that you'll accept it, that you'll be okay, that you'll live through it, and it's not going to be the end of the world. Step two is to accept that if the worst case happens, that you're still going to be okay. Okay? A lot of times this is hard, but it's important to resolve.
So let me apply this to my example here. If I do fall off, chances are I'll probably be okay. Okay? I've fallen off a bunch. I've hit the ground multiple times. I've been bucked off, I've been jumped out from underneath ,I've hit the ground just because I've ridden so many different horses so many times. And I've started quite a few horses for the first time, and that's when the likelihood of hitting the dirt is pretty high. So I've decided that if I do fall off, that I'm going to be okay. I'm going to get back up, and if I'm hurt, I'll get well, and I'll go back to it. Okay, so once you've resolved to accept the worst-case scenario, the third step is to take action.
The third step is, now that I've resolved, the next step is to do everything that I can—whether it's within my control—to make sure that the worst-case scenario doesn't happen. Okay, so I'm going to—the third step is to do everything I can to not have that thing happen, that's the worst case. In my example here, now instead of standing there or sitting there just ruminating in all these negative thoughts, I'm going to begin to do the more prep. I'm going to prep. I'm going to take all the steps to prepare this horse for the ride, for the first ride, and I'm going to do everything that I can think of so that my first ride is a successful ride, okay? And that is going to change. It's going to redirect my thoughts back into a positive future thought process, and that is the solution.
I'm going to recap how to recognize worrying and then what the three steps are. And I guarantee you, if you use this, it will help you. It will improve your health, it will improve the people that you'll be more available to help, your people, and you're going to have better results. First of all, is to know that worrying is thinking negative thoughts about things that could happen in the future, about things that you don't want to have happen but could happen. How do we know? How can we recognize it and become aware? Because that's the next thing that we need to do, be aware that we're worrying. And here's how to recognize it.
First of all, you're usually frozen. You're usually not doing anything but thinking or ruminating. A lot of times, you're recycling the same thoughts over and thinking about all the negative things that could happen in the future. A lot of times, you'll feel tense. A lot of times, you'll be clenching your fists, and sometimes you can get a headache. These are signs that you're worrying, and so the next thing that needs to happen is recognize that you're worrying, okay? Once you recognize that, you can begin with the three steps.
Number one is to determine the worst-case scenario. Step two is to resolve to accept that worst-case scenario if it happens. And step three is to begin to take action to prevent that, to do everything you can to avoid that worst-case scenario.
Hey, thank you for taking your time to be with me today. And remember, You Are Destined For Greatness.