Moving closer to the late 20’s of my life, there are still many things that aren’t going that way I’d want it to. And I believe all of us are clinging onto things in life that are beyond our control. Maybe the work isn’t treating you fairly. Or the relationship with your romantic partner isn’t going in the direction that you desire. Perhaps the changes in weather are affecting your health. These demands of life could leave us feeling stressed, anxious, depressed, or even impact our overall well being.
How to Use this Worksheet to Stop Worrying?
This two-column Worksheet is a great tool help you stop worrying and cope with the demands of life. In the first column you are only allowed to focus on things that are within your control. Whereas, in the second column, list down things that you can worry about but aren’t really in your control. The purpose of this planner is to save you from changing or suppressing what you worry about. Rather it encourages you to pick specific things to worry about.
While we cannot control every aspect of our lives, we don’t have to feel powerless about it per se. We rather grow empowered when we realize the options/choices that we have in front of us. But often we’re so occupied focusing on things that are going wrong/beyond our control, that we need a tool to keep our eyes on the things we can actually control.
After performing the worry analysis on this two-column worksheet, you may also reflect on the kind of things you spend your time on. For instance, do you spend three hours of your day worrying about what people think about you? When in reality you may use those hours for setting up a side business! This way, the worksheet is a great reflection tool to record all your worries and return to at the end of the day. In addition, each week you can decide to add more things to the first column, and aim to eliminate one or two things from the second column every week, as one of your therapy goals.
