Hey, welcome to Happy Productive #6 and today let’s talk about worry –
In the last week we’ve seen Corona Virus sweeping the planet – and in some cases amazing examples of social responsibility and people stepping up – and in other cases horrible acts of racism, panic, hoarding, plus at the highest levels of government very disappointing leadership.
But here’s the deal, we can’t always look outside to our “leaders” so it’s a great opportunity to practice looking inside ourselves and tapping into our own leadership skills.
Because if we want to change the world – the first place we begin is within ourselves.
Listen in as I work to convince you to drop the worry and replace it with something much more fun 🙂
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WHAT YOU WILL DISCOVER
If we want to change the world, the first place to start is within ourselves
It’s not worry that puts money in the bank or causes change, this is actually backwards thinking
Replace worry with awareness, action, or trust
When you choose to worry, you are giving all your power away
FEATURED ON THE SHOW
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Hello, hello hello Jennifer Dawn here and welcome to episode number six of Happy Productive. Today we’re going to talk about worry. Doesn’t that sound like fun? Whoo. We get to talk about worry. Here is why I want to talk about this this week. In the last few weeks we have seen Coronavirus sweeping the planet. In some cases, I know that I and I’m sure you too have seen really amazing examples of social responsibility. People stepping up, people helping others, which is awesome.
Then in other cases on the flip side, I’ve seen horrible acts of racism and panic and hoarding. Come on you guys! Really, what’s the deal with the hoarding toilet paper? It’s ridiculous, and we’ve also seen really bad examples in the highest levels of our government that are very, very disappointing and the kind of leadership that we have today. In fact, in many cases, it’s really just a lot of blabbering. It’s not leadership at all.
But here’s the deal. We can’t always look to our leaders to lead us. Right now, we have a lot of leaders that really aren’t even worthy of our attention. So I think that this is actually a great opportunity to practice looking inside ourselves and to start tapping into our own leadership skills. Because here’s the deal, if we want to change the world, it’s not about forcing others to our will or our way. If we want to change the world, the first place that we have to start is deep within ourselves. T
Think about this: If you try to force other people to change, does It really work? No. We see this all over the world where it really just perpetuates anger and violence, right? Think of terrorism, think of wars, where we go in and we try to force people into our way of thinking. It really and truly just doesn’t work. But instead, if we start to become peace, and we become love, and we become compassion, what this does is it creates an example that other people will want to follow
Think of some of our greatest leaders. They embraced love and they embraced compassion. Even when they weren’t sacrificing themselves and some opponent was beating them, who really had the power? It was the person who was practicing love and compassion. They’re the ones that had the power. In the long run, they’re the ones that won because people followed them. It may not have happened right in that moment, but it eventually did happen. They create a beautiful example that other people want to follow. That’s what we want to do as well and this is where the worry comes into play.
If we’re walking around all day in a state of worry, the only thing that it’s going to do is start to compromise our thinking. When our thinking is compromised, that’s going to start affecting our emotions and how we’re feeling. Then, when our emotions and how we’re feeling are compromised, that’s going to change the actions that we are taking or not taking. From there, that’s going to actually affect our results. Then what’s going to happen is that’s going to spill over onto everyone around you. This includes your family, the people who are at home with you, your friends, your children, your partner, and it also includes your work family.
Think about this. It could be your employees. It’s your vendors, it’s your clients. It’s all these people who depend on you. They look to you for leadership. So when you’re showing up in this worried frantic crazy state, you’re doing a disservice not only to yourself, but also to everyone around you. That’s why I wanted to dive in deeper on the whole worry thing. I want to see if I can I convince you to drop it.
Now, there’s a wonderful little poem. It’s one of my favorites. It was written by John D. Rockefeller, and here’s how it goes.
My life has been one long, happy holiday, full of work and full of play. I dropped the worry on the way and God was good to me every day.
I absolutely love this little poem because whenever I feel worried, it is a little reminder to just drop it along the way. Worry is simply going to zap your time and it’s going to drain your energy. Plus, it seems all those other emotions that we don’t really want like stress, anxiety, disappointment, all of those things are going to feed off the worry that you’re producing. This series is called Happy Productive. It’s the idea behind using our time and energy to produce, with our productivity, more of the positive emotions that we want in our lives. Things like happiness and ease and joy and flow and peace and satisfaction and fulfillment.
All of those things that we want more of, because when we have more of these emotions in our lives, that’s what actually helps us get more of what we want. I did this for years and I see this happening all over: we make the mistake of thinking, “well, if this thing happens, or if I get this material possession or some event happens, well, then I’m going to be happy, right? If I make more, then I’ll be happy. If I lose the weight, well, then I’ll be happy. If I find the love of my life, well, then I’ll be happy.”
The problem is that this is backwards thinking. It’s not getting things that are going to make us happy. It’s being happy right now with everything that we have. When we produce more of those positive emotions that we want, it’s being in that state, a state of abundance, that will bring us more of the things that we want. This is where the backwards part of it comes in. We attach our happiness to this thing in the future, so we ended up not being happy today.
But getting that thing in the future. We really want it, we have to flip this, we have to focus on being happy today. It’s being happy that actually gets us those things that we want. Worry doesn’t lead to any of those things. This is where it’s super important to start asking yourself, and especially for those of you if you you’re out there and you’ve labeled yourself a worrier, right? We label these things and then we do it for so long, it becomes part of our identity. We almost carry it around like a badge of honor. I’m a worrier. I’m a procrastinator. I’m a perfectionist. But guess what, that does not serve us at all. What we want to do is we want to start asking ourselves first: what’s the payoff? Because you’re getting something out of it. If you can get clear on what it is that you’re actually getting out of it, then you can start to replace it or do something different.
So, what is the payoff that you get for being a worrier? Is it a great distraction? Because if you’re worried, you can’t deal with your emotions. If you’re worried, maybe there’s a difficult situation or a challenge in your life that you don’t really want to face. You’re so worried and it’s a wonderful distraction that you don’t have to face it. Maybe you’re worried because you think that’s what you’re supposed to do. You saw your parents worry; you saw your grandparents worry. You just think, well, I’m supposed to worry too, because worrying is making me a good parent or it’s what I’m just supposed to do. I don’t know any better.
Maybe you’ve decided you’re going to be a worrier because you’re seeking some kind of attention. “Hey, everyone, look at me and comfort me and listen to me because I’m worried.” Instead of comforting ourselves, we’re looking to others to do it, and we’re using worry as a way to think. It’s important to really start asking yourself, “what really is the payoff that I’m getting from all this worry?” The truth is that worry is just going to feed all those other negative emotions. It’s only going to compromise your thinking. From that place, it’s actually going to slow down your forward progress on your life on your goals, or anywhere that you want to go, because worry does not put more money in your bank account.
Let’s say that you’re worried about money. When you worry about it, does it put more money in your bank account? No, your bank account balance doesn’t change, even though you could worry more, your bank account balance is going to stay exactly the same. In fact, it’s not worrying about it, clearing your thinking, and switching into a solution focused mindset: That’s what’s going to help get more money in your bank account. Let’s say you’re unhealthy or you’re trying to lose weight, and you’re so worried about it. I don’t know about you but anytime I’ve ever worried about my weight it didn’t make the pounds fall off, right? I was still fat, whether I worried about it or not. The fat didn’t go anywhere.
Think about your business. If there’s a challenge or a problem going on in your business, when you sit and you worry about it, does it solve the problem? No, it does not change reality. So why not just drop the worry so that you can then tap into your higher thinking skills. From that place, you can get to solving the problem faster, sooner, and easier, without all that worry. Now for those of you who have been worrying for years, right, and you would like to let it go, you’d like to feel better, you’d like to give yourself a break. But you’re not sure how to do it. Well, how in the world do I do that?
Let’s talk a little bit about that. Here’s I want to share with you: one of the tools that I’ve used to drop the worry, and it does work beautifully. When I feel myself start to worry, it’s basically just a trigger in my thinking, and a reminder to replace it with something else. I think, “Oh, wait, I’m feeling a little worried. I know that I want to drop the worry have made that choice. So instead of worrying, I’m going to do something else.” This is where you have to figure out what your something else is. You want to find what’s best for you. This is not what’s best for me or for your best friend, this is what’s best for you. Just figure out what you want to replace that worry with and then take back your power.
When you’re worrying, you’re basically praying for things that you don’t want. That was a great quote I read in the Jen Sincero book, You’re Badass At Making Money, one of my favorite books. When you’re worrying, you’re just praying for things that you don’t want. When you do that, what happens? You transfer all of your power to those things in the future, which might happen but probably won’t. Think of how many things you’ve worried about that never happened at all? Probably going to be a few, right? You’re transferring all of your power to these things that are likely to never happen and that’s not a good place to be.
Instead, what we want to do is get present, get right now in this moment, take back our power, and then figure out what we want to replace the worry with. I’m going to give you some ideas. Again, this has to be what’s best for you. You feel worried. And it’s like, oh, wait, this is my reminder. I’m going to replace worry with awareness. Okay, I’m aware, when I’m aware of things that are happening, I can look around, I can be aware, and I can say. “Hey, wait a second, there’s some actions I need to take.”
Being aware is a good thing. When we’re aware, we can act quickly and efficiently. We can be productive with our time. Awareness is something you could replace worry with. Another replacement might be trust. A lot of times when we’re worried, we are not trusting that the future is going to be okay or that we will be taken care of, or that the money will come, or whatever it is. This is one I use a lot is that anytime I find myself worrying, it’s just a quick little reminder, “Oh, wait a second. I’m not trusting. I’m not allowing things to work out.” Things always do in some way or another always work out. You can replace worry with trust.
Another replacement for worry could be acceptance, because whatever is happening is reality. Right now, Coronavirus is happening, whether we worry about it or we don’t worry about it, it’s going to be happening. But wouldn’t awareness serve us really well of the changes that I need to make? Wouldn’t trust serve us really well of trusting that everything is in fact going to be okay. Wouldn’t acceptance work really well in that situation? As soon as we accept reality and we stop arguing with it, we actually lessen our own pain and suffering because we no longer need to spend all that time worrying about something that we truly can’t change.
This can help us find peace and simply accepting it for what it is, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t take steps to try to change or improve. I want you to just think about this for one second. Let’s say that you decided to drop the worry and instead you decided to replace it with trust. Every time you found yourself worrying, instead, you built up the habit of always trusting that everything is well that everything will work out and that the future is good. What if you trusted that all is well, I’m okay, I’m safe, and everything’s working out to my benefit. I want you to just think, how would that change your day?
If you replaced worry with trust? How would that change your emotions every time you worried, instead you were trusting in yourself, your abilities, your future that everything was going to be good? How would that change your emotions as you go through the day? How would it change how you’re shopping Growing up in your life? How would it change how you show up in your business? If you showed up with trust instead of worrying?
Think about your family for a second, how would affect your family? If you showed up trusting that everything was going to be just fine? How would it affect them? How would it affect the people at your work, family, your clients, your vendors, your employees? How would it affect them if you always showed up with trust? Would it make you a more peaceful, loving, grounded person? Would it make you more productive in your day?
Think of how much time you spend worrying, if you replaced it with trust, how much more of your productivity would you get back in your day? I can tell you that when I asked myself these questions, it was mind altering. I would really show up a very different person if I wasn’t worried and I would get so much of my productivity back. That’s what happened for me and that’s definitely what I want for you too. There is such a peace to be found in yourself with your own abilities, your own self confidence, when you make the choice to drop that worry along the way.
That is our lesson for today. I really hope you enjoyed it and I hope that you’ll at least consider dropping the worry because it’s truly not serving you and I want you to take your power back and replace it with something much better that will serve you. We’re going to be actually diving into this topic even deeper this week on the “Making Your Goals Inevitable” workshop. I am so excited to share all of the content from my workshop. I’ve got two spots left. So, if you’ve been on the fence and you’re like wow, I really want to do that but you’re not sure. You might be home this week anyway. What a perfect opportunity to come join us in the workshop. So, get in there and secure your seat.
You can find out information on either of my websites either bestplannerever.com or jenniferdawncoaching.com and on either website, just click workshops. It’ll take you right there to the making your goals inevitable. And guess what? When you’re a member of my other coaching programs or any of my coaching programs, you get to attend super cool, awesome workshops like this at no additional cost. Yes, they’re basically free, and I do them at least every quarter. So what are you waiting for, get in there.
If there’s areas of your life that you really want to change, check out Goal Achievers life coaching. This is where we take one life coaching topic every month, we dive in deep on it, and we work to apply it to our lives in a way that’s fun, but never overwhelming. If you’re like me, I want to work on my life and I really want to work on my business.
Come join us in Inner Circle because you get everything from life from goal achievers and you get amazing business coaching with me and my whole team to take your business to the next level. That’s it you guys, drop the worry! Then go out there and have a super Happy Productive Day!
xo
Jennifer