“Don’t worry about it.”
I hate this phrase.
Hearing this phrase does the exact opposite of its intent. It creates worry for me. I find that worry is a waste of time. I’m with Travis Bradberry on this. He said the following about worry:
“‘What if?’ statements throw fuel on the fire of stress and worry. Things can go in a million different directions, and the more time you spend worrying about the possibilities, the less time you’ll spend focusing on taking action that will calm you down and keep your stress under control.”
– Travis Bradberry
I avoid using “What if?” statements as much as possible because they bring on worry. I do what I can to create instances where there’s no need to ask that question because I’ve already put a process in place that negates it.
“What if I can’t get that blog post done today?” leads to the answer “You will because you’ve set aside 11pm to 1:30am to work on maiming stuff. You’ll just make it then if all else fails.”
“What if I don’t know what to do on Friday?” leads to the answer “You’ve already defined Friday as the day you give your focus to planning tasks, so just look at the tasks you’ve tagged as such and you’ll know what to do.”
“What if I get sick? My family has it and I’m afraid I’m going to get it too.” leads to the answer “If that happens then you’ll just look at tasks you’ve tagged as low energy tasks and work on those while you focus on getting better.”
Instead of worrying about “What if?” scenarios as they come up, focus on creating clear answers in advance when you can that remove the worry as much as possible. Every time something like this comes up, create that clarity so you have a solution when it comes up again – which will inevitably happen in some way, shape, or form.
Make that happen and then when someone says “Don’t worry about it” in the future, you’ll be able to do just that.
