How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Students, Employees, Parents etc., take anyone you know. What do all of them have in common? Worry! It may seem absurd but we got used to getting worried about every little thing in our life and not being happy with what we already have. Students worry about their grades and exams, Parents worry about their children future and how to provide for them, Employees worry about their performance ratings etc., We consciously or unconsciously worry about all these things and not enjoy our present day. This worry comes from overthinking.

Whenever you overthink about something remember this quote, “Overthinking is the ‘art’ of creating problems that weren’t even there”. Dale Carnigie is a pioneer in developing self-improvement courses. I would definitely recommend his book ‘How to Stop worrying and Stop Living’ to everyone. As many people nowadays has no time to read a complete book I’ll summarize the key ideas from the book.

Day-Tight Compartments

Yes, today is the consequence of your past actions but worrying about it doesn’t help your future either. Thinking about past and fearing for future makes your present look much difficult and miserable. Just focus on today, it’s not easy as it sounds but with practice it’ll be a cakewalk. Remember this tip ‘If you do your best today, future will take care of itself’.

The magic Formula

A magic formula for solving your worry problems is to ask yourself “What is the worst thing that could happen?”. Once you get a picture of the worst thing that can happen you’ll realize that it’s not as bad as you’ve imagined it in your brain and work calmly. This takes out the uncertainty in your brain.

Crowd Worry out of your Mind

An idle mind is devil’s workshop, so make yourself busy. When our mind is occupied by work we don’t have time to worry. Instead of complaining about your boss’ attitude go out and do something that’ll make you happy & keeps you busy.  

Acknowledge what you have

You definitely remember a day in your life where everything went wrong and you didn’t get your work done. See this is the problem with our brain, we remember the 10% things that didn’t work out and forget 90% things that worked out pretty well. You should choose what to remember.

Another thing you can do to cure your depression is to help others. By helping others, you feel good about yourself and be happy that day.

In this book Dale Carnigie illustrates his methods by some stories which we can easily relate to. How to Stop Worrying and Start Living is one of the best books available on happiness. Do read it if you have some time.

Here’s the animated review of the book by FightMediocrity. This is by far the best video review.