How to Stop Worrying So Much and Be More Successful at Life!

“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.” - Mark Twain

In today's world, there are plenty of things to worry about and the list seems to grow everyday. There's war, the safety of the food we eat, nuclear accidents, car accidents, "Will our children be safe?" There's diseases, pollution, taxes, will we still have a job next year? The list goes on and on. There' a million and one things to worry about. Take your pick.

You want to be a worrier or a warrior? Take your pick.

I have plenty of friends who seem to worry constantly. The biggest thing they worry about is work. I think it is pretty safe to say that they are their own worse enemy. 

The funny thing is they think I don't worry about work or these other things at all. But I do worry! I am a "worrier" for certain. They just don't know! I think, up to a certain point, worrying is perfectly normal human behavior, and we all do it. But my friends think I don't worry because I've found a good way to control it and I'm glad I did. It's easy to do and just takes 3 minutes every morning. That's a better deal than worrying all day, right?

Many years ago, I used to worry so much that I wouldn't sleep well at night. The funny part is that I'd be worried about work! Think about that! I'm worried about work so much that I cannot sleep well. Then, the next morning I go to work and I'm tired. I'm so tired that I don't do a good job. So I worry so much about losing my job that I lose sleep and then, on the job, do a poor job because I'm sleepy because I didn't sleep well because I was worried about losing my job! What an idiot I was!

Doesn't make any sense, does it?

Worrying all the time is a proven cause of unhappiness and stress. Stress is a proven cause of a wide array of physical and mental illnesses and disorders. Life is rough enough as it is without our own thinking placing a heavier burden on our shoulders than we already have.

Think about it, is there any one of us who can do our best and achieve to our capacity - or even higher than that - when, in the back of our mind is this crawling negative fear - a worry - that binds us? Of course not.

So why do we do this to ourselves?

Today I want to give you two really good tips that can help you control your worrying. First off, I'd like to recommend that buy yourself a $1.00 pocket notebook and that you write down your top 5 or 10 goals first thing in the morning when you wake up everyday. Do it like religion or brushing your teeth.

Writing down your goals will help your subconscious mind to focus better on what is really important to you in your life and it will also allow the Law of Attraction to work in your favor. (There are several links at the bottom of this post to other articles with more details that you might enjoy reading).  

Here's how I do it: I wake up and sit down and think about what is really important to me. Do not cheat by looking at what you wrote the day before. Think. Really think about what is important for you and write it down. If you do this everyday and do not look at the previous day's goals, the things that are important to you and your life will naturally flow to the top. I used to write things about money and business as my top goals, but after doing this for so many years, I came to realize what is truly important in my life is not that. It is my family.

These are my recent top four goals (and I always add today's date at the end):

1) I am a wise and patient father and husband. I am a kind person.

2) Thank you god for all the wonderful things I have and am about to receive today.

3) All my loved ones are healthy and prosperous today.

4) I am a very successful businessman and 2012 is my best year so far. 2013 is even better!

Recently there are another 4 on the list, but those have to do with my work and financial goals. Everyone would be different, of course.

Actually, writing these things down is not my original idea. It is the method of success in life and business for many extremely wealthy people and the basis for a best-selling book: "Goals! How to Get Everything You Want - Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible" by Brian Tracey. May I suggest that you do yourself a great favor and read that book and apply some of the simple rules to your life? 

By the way, one of my dearest friends read this book and later I asked him about it. He said that he does write down his goals in his iPhone. Folks, the advice of millionaires say to buy a handy pocket notebook. It is extremely difficult for any computer or hand held device to be faster than a pen and paper. Why ignore the advice of these people who have succeeded and are rich for the $1.00 it costs to buy a pocket notebook? 

Also, I find that having a handy pocket notebook is great for lowering stress in that I never forget anything. Anytime I have a good idea or something that I must remember to do, I jot it down. It's so much faster with a pen and paper than any electrical device could ever be!

The second good piece of advice I have for those of you who find yourself in a serious pinch whereby you are worrying so much that it has engulfed your entire being is to realize that your brain can only think about one thing at a time. Seriously. It's true. The human brain can only process information about one thing at a time.

There will be people now who think I am wrong about this, but I am not. Just because you can multi-task at work doesn't mean that your brain can think about more than one thing at once. It cannot. Your brain can switch back and forth quite quickly so that the skilled person can multi-task but that doesn't mean that the brain can focus on more than one matter at any given moment.

Here. Let me prove it to you. Here is a sentence. Read it and them repeat it over and over in your head. You will see that, as you are repeating it, you are unable to think about anything else, unless you switch off the repetition. Here is the sentence:

"I am a positive and hard working person and today is the best day so far this year and tomorrow is going to be even better!"

Read it and memorize it. Now, repeat it over and over in your head. Do it many times. 

See? Your mind can only focus on one problem at a time. This is why constant worry is so dangerous. Because if you are only worrying, you will begin to make things worse as you will focus your entire being on that worry. It is a vicious cycle.

Stop it right now!

Anytime of the day, if you catch yourself starting to worry, stop. Take a phrase like the one I have given you above and repeat it in your head over and over until the worrying goes away. If the worrying (or panic) comes back, then start up the phrase and repeat again until the fear and worrying subside.

Some astute readers will recognize what I have written here as a form of meditation, chanting, or prayer. Call it what you want, it will help you to defeat the worrying that is destroying your health and your life. 

I hope that, if you start to worry, that you'll try these these two simple exercises that will help you set your mind free and help you to relax. They've helped me greatly. I know they will help you too.

I do recommend the book, "Goals! How to Get Everything You Want - Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible" by Brian Tracey but, if you are a cheapskate (like me) and need more evidence, I've written extensively about it here below:

One Easy Step To Becoming a Better Parent and More Successful at Life

Pocket Notebooks: The Secret of Millionaires and People Won't Listen!?

Vacation is a State of Mind - How to Get The Truly Wonderful Things in Life

Pocket Notebooks: The Secret of Millionaires and People Won't Listen!?

I've read so many success books written by millionaires. These books about becoming a millionaire all say the same thing (basically): Hang around millionaires and successful people and copy what they do. 

ELVIS COSTELLO - EVERYDAY I WRITE THE BOOK

OK. I started doing that. I'm lucky, actually, I do have friends and work acquaintances who are millionaires. Five of them to be exact.


Five good friends who are all millionaires and they all do the very same thing. 


In Brian Tracey's best-selling book "Goals!" he talks about writing down your goals everyday. He says something like, "How can you be successful and how can you know where you are going without having your goals written down? Writing down your goals gives you a road map to where you want to go."


He also recommends carrying around a pocket-sized notebook. Pocket sized so that you can always have it with you in your pocket to write down your goals daily and things you think about or things so that you don't forget.


The notebook idea is also recommended by Napoleon Hill and Andrew Carnegie too (among others).


This notebook idea was recommended to me by some friends who started companies and built them into corporations that were listed on the Tokyo Stock Market and had earning in excess of $50 million dollars a year before they went public. Of course these guys earned millions when they sold their shares. 


One day, I was at a meeting with one of these friends. He and three others all pulled out their pocket notebooks. I pulled out my notebook pad from my briefcase. I was impressed that all three of them each had a pocket notebook.


After the meeting ended two of them left. My former boss looked up and said to me, "Why haven't you bought a pocket notebook like the kind that I recommended to you?" (He was also the guy who recommended the Goals! book and to read the Napoleon Hill and Carnegie books too.)

Been doing this now for over 4 years. It

really does work! Everything has come true!

Puzzled, I said, "I have a notebook!" I then showed him my B5 sized book.


He sighed and then said to me, "I gave you good advice. I know that you've read this same advice in the books I told you to read. You've been to meetings with me in front of other extremely successful people. Now why in the world do you not take such good advice because of ¥100 (about $1.00)?"


That hit me like a bullet right between the eyes. 


He was right. Here was a millionaire giving me advice. I had read in several books how millionaires all had pocket notebooks. Yet I didn't do it. Why didn't I do it? I don't know, when I stopped to think about it. From the way he said it, it sounded like I was too cheap to use ¥100 to take the advice of millionaires.


I was an idiot. When you think about it like this, then it is complete stupidity not to have a pocket notebook like these people. Imagine what it must have looked like to them when they all pulled out a pocket notebook and I opened up a book that was the size that elementary school kids use. Yes, I was an idiot. 


Not anymore.


I started using a pocket notebook about 4 years ago. I write down my Top 10 goals everyday like clock-work. I also always keep it in my back pocket and pull it out whenever I need it and write things down. I never forget anything anymore.


Now I see people who never take notes at meetings and do not have a pocket notebook. You can imagine what I think now.


I have written before about the value of writing your goals down everyday in One Step to Becoming a Better Parent and More Successful in Life:

I write down my goals every day religiously in the morning when I wake up and, not only does doing so help me to achieve them, it also helps me to relax and stay much more focused through the day. Who doesn't want to stay more focused in this day and age when our "in-box" includes, for most people, several e-mail accounts that are constantly filling up as the day goes by and consistently altering our priorities? Add on an Internet world filled with Social Media like Facebook and Linkedin accounts to attend? Twitter is no longer for just sending messages to your friends, but it too, has been co-opted into the business world and your boss orders you to use them, or blogs and SNS, to get the company message out...

How in the world can anyone today get ahead of the pile in the "in-box"? Any person in their right mind would be stressed.

.....let me point out that writing down your goals and purposes is like having a sort of road map to where you want to go. When you write them down, they enter your subconsciousness and they cause your inner brain to focus upon the Law of Attraction. If you do not write down where you want to go — if you do not have a map — then how will you know where you are going?

All these millionaires and successful people have a pocket notebook and they write down their goals everyday in it. They keep their pocket notebook with them everyday, close-by in their pocket!


Excellent advice on how to get ahead by people who've done it. Now, when you think about it like that, what kind of idiot wouldn't take that kind of advice from millionaires for only a dollar?