Why worry?

Your mind races. Your head spins. Your thoughts go round and round.

You’re mentally exhausted but no closer to a solution.
You’re worrying.

It’s what happens when your brain is in a hurry to arrive at a solution but with no means of getting there: the ‘wheels’ spin until they burn out.

That’s why it’s so important to know a few simple thinking techniques (like the ones you’ll find throughout this blog); they allow you to direct all that mental power at whatever decision or problem besets you.

Take (for example) a classic dilemma between two choices:

Yes or No, Stay or Go, Raise or Fold… Option A or Option B.

Assuming these really are the only choices, ask yourself: do they offer dramatically different outcomes? If A offers a much better result than B (or visa versa) then this is an easy decision to make.

If they’re not all that different, then it really doesn’t matter which one you pick: if choosing between two perfectly good options is your idea of a problem then you don’t know how good you’ve got it. And if both options are equally bad (you’re damned if you do and if you don’t) then again, it hardly matters which way you go.

And the next time you find yourself worrying about a problem, consider this: it’s either something you can fix or it isn’t. If you can fix it, there’s no need to worry.

And if you can’t? There’s no point in worrying.
So why worry?

Like this post? Check out these related pieces:

How to Decide… not to
How to be better at making decisions that matter
Worrying about the wrong things
Time to think
Spread yourself thick
How to be smart