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This here is a speech I presented at our January 15th Peachland Toastmasters Meeting in which I am VP of Education at. Toastmasters is a club in which each week we meet to develop public speaking skills, self confidence, personal and leadership growth, and learn how to properly plan, orchestrate and evaluate formal meetings. I'll be sure to tell you more about our club in future posts. Feel free to contact me if Toastmasters is something you would benefit from. I know first hand it has changed my life in positive ways I could have never imagined.
World Without Worries
Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is about as
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in life are the things that
never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you, at 4 pm, on some idle Tuesday.
According to Wikipedia, worry is thoughts; images and
emotions of a negative nature in which mental attempts are made to avoid
anticipated potential threats. As an
emotion it is experienced as anxiety or concern about a real or imagined issue,
usually personal issues such as health, or finances, or broader ones such as
environmental pollution and social or technological change.
Interesting.
For me worry is a linier pattern that my thoughts
follow. After speaking with many family
members, and friends, and after reading books and articles on the subject I
have found that many people go through the same thought process without even noticing
it.
We gather our thoughts and experiences from the past and use
them in the present to project what we think the future is going to look
like. We try to predict our future
before it happens. Why? Well because we
want to be sure to avoid any problems or possibilities of failing or getting
hurt.
Is this a good process to follow?
I think it helps us as long as we look at all the
possibilities. We have to look at the
positive as-well as the negative.
Can this be distracting or even detrimental?
Yes it can. I know so, first hand.
Being a real estate agent I have made a lot of telephone
calls. Cold calls, as they are called in
sales. And I know that 9 out of 10 time
I call a prospect about listing their home for sale they are going to be
uninterested, grumpy, or outright rude when I call. But if I never made a call, I would never
make a sale, and if I never made a sale, I wouldn’t have food on my table to
eat.
To be dramatic, I know first hand that 10 out of 10 times, a
human being is born, at some point that human being will parish. Therefore, me being alive right now I know
the worst thing that can happen is I can pass on.
To be light, I know I have rode my snowboard down hundreds
if not thousands of runs, and I rode 8 runs on Friday. Out of all those runs I have passed thousands
if not millions of trees. If I were to
focus on the one time I tried to pass a tree and hit my face on it hard enough
to give me a shiny black eye, I could possibly never want to go snowboarding
again.
Focus on the positive.
I know worry affects almost everyone almost everyday. We worry about ourselves our family and friends. We worry about our health and our
finances. We worry about environmental
pollution and social and technological change.
We worry about repeating the past.
I have a great quote for you: History does not repeat itself; people repeat
history.
Another great quote to banish worry: Yesterday is history,
tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift.
I have three effective ways in which I have adopted to help
me solve my worry problems.
The first is a magically formula for solving worry.
1.
I first ask myself what is the worst that can
happen?
2.
Next I begin to prepare mentally to accept that
fate. Once I came to grip with the
ultimate worse fate is death I found it a lot easier to accept other easier
fates like getting rejected on the telephone when trying to make real estate
sales, or hitting my face off of a tree while snowboarding.
3.
Then I go ahead and begin to focus and improve
on the worse possible fate. If it is
death I begin to focus on the fact I am still alive and that I most likely have
a long life ahead of me. If it is
getting rejected on the telephone I try and get a yes or a follow up
appointment. Something that might lead
to a sale. If it is hitting my head on a
tree snowboarding I focus on how wonderful the snow is and getting down the run
safely.
A second technique I use to solve worry problems is simple
again. I heard this quote a long time
ago and have used it ever since: I kept
six honest serving men, they taught me all I knew, there names are What and Why
and When and How, and Where and Who.
If you catch yourself playing the tapes again, and you are
stuck on repeat, worrying about some possible situation that could be your
fate, use this technique to analyze your worry.
What and I worrying about? What can I do about it?
Why am I worrying? Why do I feel the need to worry?
When will this situation take place? When will it be over?
How will it come about? How can I improve on the worse?
Where will it take place? Where can I improve?
Who will it involve? Who will need to take initiative?
The third and final technique I use to solve worry problems
is to simply work away my worry.
I have noticed that it is impossible to worry while you are
distracted and immersed in your work.
Can you think of a giant elephant and what you want to do tomorrow
morning at the same time?
If you are worrying about something in the future, make a
list of things you can do in the mean time and start working on them. If there is a choice you have to make next
Tuesday, don’t even try to make a informed decision until next Tuesday. Until then go ahead and work on gathering all
the information and working on everything you can in the mean time. This way you will be so distracted and busy
working you will have no time to worry.
Focus on the now.
Living in the now is the easiest way I know how to get rid
of worry. If you are constantly focused
on what you can do now, you can live in world without worry.
