How To Stop Worrying About What You Cannot Control

Winner Winner chicken dinner, worry worry chicken curry! Worrying-phew!

Not to make light of something as heavy as worry, but I can tell you as a first class, A grade warrior, I mean worrier, I’ve found worry to be worthless. And yet, it feels so good. 

Telling a worrier to stop worrying, is like telling an Acid tripper not to trip while he’s on Acid. Because a worrier, by nature, is always on a worry trip. And his Acid is literally, anything. 

At this point, note that I googled the term worrier, and this popped up – 

If you describe someone as a worrier, you mean that they spend a lot of time thinking about problems that they have or unpleasant things that might happen.

So I put my (over) thinking cap on, and made a decision. If I was going to worry, then I was going to professionalise how I did it. Structure it. Make it work for me. Be a leader of worry, not a follower. 

While running one of my Corporate Leadership sessions, I came across this amazing tool by Stephen Covey from his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This is a worrier – changing tool, and can help teach you how to stop worrying. Take A glance at the picture below.

How to Stop Worrying About things NOT under Your control Using Stephen Covey’s 3 Circles

Stephen Covey talks about drawing concentric circles, but for the ease of explanation, let’s do it this way. 

Draw a circle. 

Write down, in this circle everything that concerns you, that you have no control over. Literally, no control. 

This is your circle of concern. The picture below depicts a few things that have often kept me up at night. 

The Circle of Concern

I’m sure you’ve noticed that none of these things are in my direct control.  Yes, I can use less plastic, I can socially distance during this pandemic, and I can avoid peak traffic hours. 

Beyond this, no matter how much energy I invest in this, the object of my worry is not mine to begin with. The ROI on my energy, is negligible. Because the impact I can have on it, singularly, is negligible. 

But how can you be so apathetic? It’s important to be concerned about these issues, you might assert. I feel you. And I’ve felt guilty when I’ve pushed issues of child labour or rape out of my mind. Until one day, during my pregnancy, I was up all night furious about what was going on in the world. The fires, the homicides, the racism, the corruption, the pandemic, the riots – it was non stop!

I felt my heart racing, and breath getting shorter. Most often I was also worried about my baby, my next scan, and my future. I then worried for the people that weren’t worrying. For my friends who didn’t seem to care about the goings on of this crazy world and were blissfully in their own garden of seemingly blossoming flowers. 

One of my chilled out friends said this to me. Well they didn’t, but I wish they did, and so I’m telling you –

“why don’t you focus on the flowers and the thorns in your own garden. If everyone did that, the neighbourhood would be prettier. If every neighbourhood did that, the district would be prettier, and so on” 

And so, I decided to focus on my own garden. This takes me to the next circle, the one I’ve grown to love – the Circle of Control. 

The Circle of Control

As you can see, these objects of worry are metaphorically verbs. Doing words. Actions. Things that immediately make a worrier a warrior. Things that I was in absolute and complete control over. For a control freak, this is the Acid that gives the best of trips. Like checking things off a to do list.

So when I worried about these things, I actioned what I could. When I worried about my weight, I went for a walk. If I worried about my sleep, I did deep breathing for 10 minutes. When I was worried about my baby, I made a note of the baby’s kicks. There was a sense of sense to this worry. 

This now takes me to the last circle, the Circle of Inlfuence. These are all the things I could influence, but couldn’t directly control. 

The Circle of Influence 

And so, I learnt more about how to influence these things the right way, and I picked out the objects that I could transfer to my circle of control. Like learning how to communicate better to get that promotion. Or going to the gym so maybe my parents would be inspired to go to. 

As I started turning to this tool in times of worry, my breath started getting easier, my heart started beating calmer, and my mind started getting clearer. And the clearer my thoughts, the more I could actually impact the things I was worrying about. 

So the next time you’re pacing at 4 am, remember Stephen Coveys concentric circles

1. Control : controlled by only ME

2. Influence : Part me + part others

3. Concern : Not under my control

Focus on the Me, and let the rest Be.

I’ll leave you with what has been the most life changing prayer for me, known as the Serenity prayer – 

‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference’ 

Now be off, my dear worrier, I mean warrior – may you find Serenity!

Would love to hear what you do when worthless worry comes your way! Spill!

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