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Brian Tracy breaks down worry as fear from indecision and offers a four-step fix: define the problem, imagine the worst outcome, accept it, then act to prevent it. He explains how worry actually shuts down your thinking brain.
Brian Tracy breaks down worry as fear from indecision and offers a four-step fix: define the problem, imagine the worst outcome, accept it, then act to prevent it. He explains how worry actually shuts down your thinking brain.
One of the major causes for stress in adult life is worry. And in this session, we're going to talk about how you can eliminate stress with what I call the Worry Buster formula. It's a formula that I've developed over the years. I've taught it to more than a million people, and it is so powerful that it can eliminate worry immediately, almost like a bug zapper can zap a bug. You can zap worry with this technique for the rest of your life. Now, many people suffer stress because of worry. Sometimes it can ruin a person's life. And the fact is that 99% of things that you worry about never come true. And the things that do come true are things that you didn't even know that you should worry about. Here's the definition. Worry is a sustained form of fear caused by indecision. Now, indecisiveness in any situation will translate into negative stress that trips you up and impairs your effectiveness. It'll actually cause large parts of your brain to shut down and stop working for you in the attainment of your goals. Remember your neocortex, your thinking brain. The brain at the front of your mind is where you do all your thinking and reasoning. And when you start to get stressed or worried, your brain backs off to your limbic system, your fight or flight system, and all of your thinking ability turns off, like turning off a light switch. The very best technique I've ever learned to deal with worry is what one of my students named the Worry Buster. The Worry Buster consists of four simple steps that you can use when you face any difficulty or problem at all that is bothering you for any reason. Here are the four steps. First, define the worry, situation or problem clearly, preferably in writing. Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the center. On one side of the piece of paper, write out a clear definition of exactly why it is that you are worrying. Proper diagnosis is 50% of the cure. When you have a clear definition of exactly the situation that is causing you to experience worry or stress, you almost always begin to see steps that you could take immediately to resolve the problem. Clarity is very important. Now, the second step in the Worry Buster formula is for you to determine the worst possible outcome of your problem or situation. What is the very worst that could possibly happen? Remember, denial is not a river in Egypt. Face it squarely. Confront it. Could you lose your job? Could you lose your money? Could you lose your relationship? Whatever it is, write it down on the right hand column next to your definition of the problem. Most worry is caused by resistance or a refusal to face or to deal with the worst thing that could possibly occur if your worry situation were to happen. Once you've defined the worst possible outcome of the situation, much of your stress will disappear and your mind will become calm and constructive again. Let's say you're in a bad investment and the money is in and it's gone, and there's a very good likelihood that you could lose some or all of it. So you write down the worst thing that can happen here is that I lose all the money I invested. Then you say, well, that's not going to kill me. And then suddenly your worry starts to go away. It's the refusal to face the worry situation that causes the stress. The third step in the formula is for you to resolve to accept the worst should it occur. Just say to yourself, well, if it does happen, I'll learn to live with it. Your decision to accept the worst should it occur eliminates the worry situation as a source of stress from your life. You no longer have anything to worry about because you've already accepted that it might happen. The fourth step in the worry buster formula is for you to begin immediately to do everything you possibly can to make sure that the worst does not occur. We call this damage control or minimizing the maximum worst outcome. Now you begin to think positively and creatively, Looking for different things you can do and actions that you can take to minimize the worst possible outcome. This is the mark of higher intelligence. The only real cure for worry is always systematic principle purposeful action on the achievement of a goal or the resolution of a problem. Get so busy working on your goals or your solutions that you simply don't have time to worry at all. And suddenly all the negative stress caused by the worry is transformed into positive stress that drives you forward to achieving something that you really want.
