Kick Worry to the Curb Once and for All!

by Rick White, President 180BIZ                                                            (Estimated Read Time 4 minutes)

Lately, I’ve been talking about worry.  In today’s episode, I’ll talk about how to fix worry. The first thing necessary to fix worry is to identify it. Most of us are usually in “push” mode and we ignore how we’re feeling. Worry creates uncertainty and uncertainty doesn't always feel good. So, what do we do? We just push even harder to control things.

To control worry, step back and take a deep breath

But what I want you to do is step back and recognize what’s going on inside of you and realize how tense you are. You're breathing becomes shallow and your mind's going a million miles a minute, figuratively speaking, I want you to stop and take a breath. Take a deep breath.  And as you take that breath loosen up. Then do it again.

Worry resides in your reactive brain

Here's why. Your brain is made up of two parts. You have your thinking brain and you have a reactive brain. When you are in worry mode, your reactive brain is in complete control and it is looking for threats. It's worried about what's going to happen next. It's looking for problems in the environment. You need to get out of that part of your brain How do we do that? By taking a breath first, realizing it, taking another breath, and loosening up.

Ask yourself, “What’s Real?”

Then reassure yourself. “I got this!” Then I want you to do one more thing for me. I want you to ask, “What’s real?” When we get into full-blown worry, we're not worried about the problem. We're worried about what we think the problem will create. For example, if your car count is low, you're not worried about not having enough cars to work on, you're worried about going out of business.  

Peel back the layers using your logical brain

To combat this, you need to get down to the core. You can't do that in your reactive brain. Creativity is not in your reactive brain. It is in your thinking brain, your logical brain. So, ask yourself this question. What’s real? Then you can peel back the layers and uncover the real issue. If you have a low car count, what will you do about it? Now you're in your thinking brain. You can start to make a difference.

Most of us allow our feelings to drive

The other thing that I want to share with you is the concept of feelings and emotions. We have a problem with feelings. It's not that our feelings are problems. It's where we let our feelings go. Your emotions are meant to be a gauge like on the dashboard in a car.. Emotions and feelings give you information, and feedback on where you see yourself in the environment you're in right now. Unfortunately, what a lot of us do, in fact, all of us do some more than others, is we allow those feelings to drive. We give them control of our bodies, and we start reacting. We end up regretting some of the things we say and do.  

Recognize the feeling and dial it down

Recognize the feeling. It's not shutting off the feeling that's important. It's being able to dial it down. I want you to imagine in your mind, a big knob. On that knob to the right, is panic attack, and if we flip that gauge one-third of the way up, so there's still two-thirds, that's where worry and fear are, but if I continue to turn that down that’s concern.

 Your reactive brain has an imagination. It is 100% doom and gloom. That is what our neuroactive brain does. You must get out of that portion of your brain and into the logical, creative part of your brain. And you do that by dialing it down. You do that by reassuring that little child inside that reactive brain, “It will be okay.”

Then ask, “What will I do about it?”

Once we do that, we move to “What will I do about it?” Now you can think about ways to combat what’s causing the worry. Every time you let your emotions drive, you screw up. You make the wrong decision or make a poor decision. You say something that hurts someone that you did not mean to hurt. You're allowing your brokenness inside to infect others. We don't want to do that.

Emotions are indicators

Step back and get down to what's real. And then what do you do about it? There's no such thing as a good emotion or a bad emotion. They're just indicators. They're only bad when we let them drive.

If this video resonates with you, if you think this could help someone, please share it. Let others in. Also, join me in our next Shop Owner’s Round Table.  It’s the second Thursday of every month at 7:00 PM Eastern time. Check out my Pocket Business Genius webinar series you’ll find helpful webinars and webinar recordings there. It’ll be a game changer for a lot of shops.

God bless. stay safe, have some fun, and go make some money.

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