Ever caught yourself worrying a lot? Thoughts consuming you and sucking the life out of you? Getting so lost in them that you don’t even notice the cute guy who just walked by?
I see myself fussing over countless issues, some immaterial, some super sensitive. Overthinking and analysing all possible terrible things that can happen to me and then worrying about it, putting myself down and letting them get to me has become more of an everyday story now. In fact, my brain is so used to this that it cooks up imaginary situations that can go wrong and then makes me worry about them when they don’t event exist!
And now, I’m done with this. I cannot let it get to me. Not anymore.
So I’ve worked out 3 questions to ask myself before pursuing the problems I’m dealing with. Because not all problems deserve my time and not all can be ignored.
1. Can I do something about this?
We can do nothing about most problems we have. Yet, we fuss over them. So It is wise to filter out problems that are absolutely out of our control.
2. How important is the problem to me?
Rate the problem at hand from 0 to 10 and if you score it less that 8, ditch it right there. You really don’t need to waste your time on the ones that matter least.
3. What is my return on investment?
What am I going to get if I solve this problem? — If you invest a lot of time and effort into solving a problem and if the result is not what you would like to have, then its not worth it.
It’s only been a while since I started putting this to practice, but I already find myself loving this. It feels good to take these unnecessary bits off my plate when I have a lot of better things to do!
Afterall, who doesn’t like a little less to worry about!