How to put your worries aside, free up your energy and regain your focus
October 20th, 2022
Ann Collins
"I worry a lot about everything: work, my teams, home, my own health..." Clients tell me that they're not sleeping properly, they feel emotionally drained and things feel tough.
It's something I hear often from highly successful senior leaders who are juggling huge responsibilities both at work and often at home. They are succeeding brilliantly, achieving or surpassing targets, they are leading their teams and organisations successfully and taking on new and exciting projects with enthusiasm and great skill.
But, the constant worry is tiring. Stepping out of that state of worry feels not only difficult, but there are some underlying beliefs that are often getting in the way.
Worrying is not the same as caring
Worrying and caring are quite different: worrying comes from a place of fear and does not translate easily into action. Caring, however, brings with it the possibility of taking positive action.
If I worry and think about about climate change, I am fearful and I may consider scenarios but if I care about climate change, the gap between caring and taking action feels much smaller.
With this in mind, the saying: "there's no point in worrying" becomes easier to believe. Not only is worrying limited in its usefulness, caring could be a great replacement.
Here are two techniques to try:
Reframe worrying as caring. Try this little exercise. Think about something you are worried about. Do you care about it? If so, can you change the worrying to caring? What would that look like in practice?
Using scheduled "worry time". Scheduling a specific period of time every day where you allow yourself to worry can be helpful for some. "Worry time" is a very interesting technique for those who want to reduce worrying and anxiety that is very generalised and is used in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. You set aside maybe 10 minutes where you allow yourself to worry. It's very important that this time is restricted! Outside of this time, you don't allow yourself to worry and instead make a note of the worries that come up for this block of time.
This small shift can be life changing. Let me know if this helps you!
If it's something you would like more support around, book a call with me.