I bet anyone who reads this would think, “Yep, I sure do a lot of that, but using it, now you’ve lost me”. Well, I’m here to tell you that worrying, although it is a thorn in our sides most of the time, it can be used to better your life and outlook.

But to understand how we can shift that anxiety into something we can use within our arsenal, we have to learn what is the root cause of such a thing. Worrying, or anxiety is generally drawn up from our inner selves about something in the future that may or may not happen. In simpler words, it’s a fear of the future. Think for a moment, you don’t really worry about the past. Instead, you have regrets about the past. Now, you could argue that you can worry about past events, but more than likely you’re worried about that past events impact on a future event.

As an example, you might have had to do some form of public speaking in your life. Let’s say that it went horribly and has stuck with you ever since. No doubt, I imagine you would have regrets about that experience but your worries would relate to something in the future. Those anxieties might sound something like this, “What’s everyone going to say? OMG I’m so embarrassed”, “My boss invited to a one-on-one meeting that isn’t on our normal meeting schedule, does that mean I’m in trouble?” or “I have to do another one of those talks in a few weeks time, I’m not good at these things, that’s why I messed up, and I’ll probably screw the next one up too”.

Those examples are to give you typical responses that you yourself may have exhibited. The thing to notice is that, even though you might make reference to the past horrible event, it’s used as evidence about the future event, the thing you’re actually worrying about.

At this point I want to hit you with a quote from Winston Churchill, “Let our advanced worrying become our advanced thinking and planning”. See where this is going?

So, I’ll be brief. Instead of letting your subconscious mind paralyse you with fear and worry, use that energy to think about how to plan against that future issue from occurring. Through this, not only will you reduce worrying but you’ll also have a plan of action (You can only focus on one thing at a time, in this case, worrying or planning, can’t do both at the same time). Having a plan doesn’t always prevent the thing from happening, but it will reduce the likelihood.

Personal story time. Yay.

So, couple months back I had to give a presentation about a data analysis project I was doing, very exciting right? The problem was, it was going to be in front of the whole department, 40-50 people give or take. I’m not the most experienced presenter, so I was anxious about doing a good job and not looking like an idiot while my colleagues were watching. What I did was quite simple and that’s the thing best thing about it. Whenever I could, even including my lunch break, I would book out a meeting room and practise my speech; over time, I cut out sentences that didn’t flow right, I figured out when to do a momentary pause and just got familiar with the content and deliver of my speech. In the end, my performance was great and I was so relieved that I had employed my energy in a powerfully productive way.

Now my Hedites, share this with two of your friends who worry themselves silly and let’s get their feelings working for them.