Let Go of Worry and Self Doubt by Retraining Your Brain

No matter who you are, we all tend worry about things and that worry turns into self doubt. I remember a time, probably about 7 months ago, when I was going through a little legal tiff and, while I wholeheartedly believed that I was in the right, I couldn’t help but feel this overwhelming cloud hang over me as I worried about the outcome. I knew that even if things didn’t go my way, it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but rather just a hassle to deal with. Knowing that, I still couldn’t keep myself from worrying and letting my mind wander into a hundred different directions. All of that worry and none of it ever even came to fruition.

Let me put it like this: If someone continued to give you bad advice, time and time again, you would stop listening to them, wouldn’t you? So why is it any different when we do it to ourselves? Why do continue to take bad advice from our own mind, again and again, knowing that things don’t ever turn out like the scenarios we imagine in our heads? Your mind will give you a hundred different ways something can turn out, yet they never happen. So why do we continue to listen to it?

Self doubt and Relationships

We are plagued by worry and self doubt and that self doubt can turn into sabotage, which can ruin your personal relationships and your work. Our relationships and our lives become negatively impacted because of our own worries, our own self doubts and our own perceptions of reality that aren’t even reality.

I’ve been reading and giving into as much mindset stuff as I can, to get as much information I can. I recently read a book that addresses this idea by Dale Carnegie, called, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living and it is this book that prompted this discussion about worry and self doubt. I also read The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, and together these books have really helped me take on a new perception of things. These are the books and ideas that have influenced today’s mindset.

So, how do we stop worrying and how can we train our brains to be happy? Happiness really is just training our minds to be happy. We all have it within us to be happy. Its our reality, our perception of reality and how we continue to train our minds to be happy and content.

“Don’t Let Tomorrow’s Worry Overshadow Today’s Accomplishment”

 If you want to eliminate worry in your life, you focus on one thing and one thing only and that thing is the now. Nothing happens in the future or has happened in the past that doesn’t relate to or effect the now. Once we understand that and understand that nothing happens that isn’t effected by the now, we can learn to focus on the now. Right now is the only thing that matters. The only thing that matters, in this moment, is this discussion on worry and self doubt. Any fires I may have to put out in the future don’t matter until they happen. Whatever happens tomorrow, doesn’t matter until tomorrow comes. When the future becomes the now, we will know how to deal with it. When have you ever met a problem head on, in a conscious state that you have not been able to attack it and plow through it? It is the mental obstacles leading up to the problem that leads to the worry, rather than the problem itself.

No matter where we are in life, we tend to worry about the things we don’t have, and we tend to focus on the things that will make our lives betters and so we think that we cannot be happy until we get it. If we’re young, we think once we move out and go to college, things will be better. If we get more money, things will get better. If we only had “this”, our life would be better and then we will be happy.

Gratitude

The key here is gratitude. We need to be thankful for the things we do have, here in the now, not focus on the things we don’t have. There are millions of other people who don’t have what you have now. There are millions of other people who don’t know where their next meal will come from, let along have a roof over their head or running water. So many people don’t know when they will eat next, while we have everything we need, including food, right outside at our fingertips. We know that we are not going to go without today. You need to be truly grateful for what you do have and once you are, you won’t have time to worry about those thing you don’t have that you think you need to be happier. When we continuously want for things, we will never be able to fulfill that need no matter how much we may get. We will continuously try to fill a whole with ‘stuff’, yet we will never be able to. We always want what we don’t have and once we get it, we no longer want it anymore and we move onto something else and it becomes a vicious cycle.

We need to continue to be present on the only thing that matters. You must do your best today (#doyourbesttoday), as it is all you can do, and not worry about the future. I encourage you to focus on the present and be grateful.

What I want you to do is leave a comment and let me know one thing, the first thing that comes to your mind that you are grateful for. I know I am grateful for my family, for our health and so much more, but I want to know what you are grateful for. So many people face so many challenges, whether it is health or money related, but we can all find something that we are grateful for.

Now I’m not saying that you have to forget about your aspirations, but rather focus on the now and what you can do now, what you can do today, to reach those aspirations. If your aspiration is to be fit, what can you do today to get you there? If you want your diet to be healthier and more dialed in, what can you eat or not eat today to get you there?

So remember, focus on the present, be grateful for the things that you do have and you can let go of that worry and self doubt.

Retrain your brain and be happy.