How to reduce the worry that stops us making that next move
Do you ever find yourself worrying or ruminating about things that just never get solved, or can’t be solved, by you at least? If the answer to this question is yes, you are not alone. We are wired to focus on the negative - dating all the way back to prehistoric times - where focusing on the sabre tooth tiger was more useful (and life-preserving) than admiring the rainbow on the horizon - it is called the negativity bias.
Worrying and ruminating can take up a lot of headspace, and suck up a lot of emotional energy, which might be OK when you are nutting out what you can do to fix or improve a situation, but it’s not so OK when whatever you are worrying about is out of your hands.
An oldie but a goodie
Stephen Covey’s book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People published way back in 1989 has stood the test of time. In Habit #1 - Be proactive, this book brought to prominence the idea that we can have control over where we invest our emotional and intellectual energy, in order to get the greatest return on our investment.
Covey points out that we all have a wide range of things in our lives that we care about: family, friends, health, finances, housing, global warming, wars, workload, and the annoying neighbour who parties late with terrible music taste.
But the question is: we should put the SAME amount of (emotional and intellectual) energy into all these things?
Covey’s golden idea was that if we focus our attention and energies on things we can control and influence and actually do something to move the issue forward, and consciously ‘let go’ of things we can’t control, we will feel more powerful and effective. That’s where we get the biggest reward or R.O.(energy) Invested .
It feels good to be working on things we can change. We can make plans and progress! Through this we become increasingly proactive because each little victory feels good, and motivates us to keep going.
It is also a great relief to be able to ‘park’ stuff that we can’t change. Just the act of reminding yourself that it’s out of your hands can be enough to ‘Flip the Switch’ and free up headspace!
By focusing our thinking and actions on what we can change, we effectively enlarge our circle of influence. We create a kind of ripple effect - where our actions have a tiny direct impact, and may inspire others, and the positive impact ripples out.
Aside from simply being a great life hack, how is this relevant for career and development planning?
It helps develop resilience for the ups and downs of your development. For a start, actually trying something new can be daunting. We can be plagued by self doubt that erodes our confidence. Change takes us out of our comfort zone so we need to be in the right mindset to give it a go! There will also be times things don’t go as planned; you may not get selected for a job, your first attempts using a new skill might be ropey (and embarrassing), you may not love the job you worked so hard to get. The list goes on.
In the face of any of these challenges, when your mind slips into rumination mode, stressing about things that have gone wrong, or could go wrong, it's the moment to consider which bucket the issue falls into.
If it is in your circle of concern, you can’t change the outcome. So the trick is to remind yourself of that and drop it and move on. The best you can do if you are stressing about something that's happened (that you would rather hadn’t happened) is to list what you have learned from the experience, and what would you do next time if the situation arose again. That is learning
If the issue falls into the category of Circle of Control or Circle of Influence, then take a moment to decide on ONE thing you will do to take the situation forward and do it. For example if you are stressing about an upcoming job interview (in your Circle of Influence), plan what additional preparation you can do for the interview, and do that.
The mission here is to focus on action orientation. When worry and stress take over your thinking, get cracking taking one positive action step at a time.
A modern take
There is a great, free app you can download, GROOV co-developed with Sir John Kirwin and the NZ Ministry of Health. It has loads of interactive tools and strategies for positive mental health. Try the Worry Map where you can describe your worry, explore what you can do about it, recognise whether it is in or out of your control and make a plan - all the things that Covey talks about.
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