26 Jul Managing worry can be as easy as ranking them as 1, 2 or 3!
I don’t know about you, but I worry a lot. And at the moment, I have a lot of worries to worry a lot about!
Nor surprisingly, this takes its toll on my sleep and mental health, my happiness and even my relationships.
But thankfully, I’ve recently remembered a strategy that I’ve found helpful in the past, and it’s starting to help me again. So I thought I’d share it with you today.
Quite simply, it begins by recognising that not all worries are equal; or not all worries are equally deserving of our attention. So I rank my worries from 1 to 3 and then try to worry less about the 2s and the 3s.
You can (and possibly should) make up your own system, but for me …
- number 1 worries are the ones that really matter AND are in my control
- number 2 worries are the ones that matter, but not quite at the same level, and over which I might have somewhat less influence
- and number 3 worries are things I’m concerned about, but for whatever reason are things over which I have no or very little control
My strategy, then, is to reflect upon my worries, give them a rating of 1, 2 or 3, and then focus most of my energies on the 1s, doing all I can to worry less about the 2s and even less about the 3s, reminding myself as often as I need to that there will always be things about which I’m not happy and things I’d love to change but about which I really can’t do much at all.
And if I can’t do much to change something then it really serves little or no purpose to worry about that thing!
Easier said than done? For sure.
Worth trying? Fur sure!