Has work ever consumed your thoughts long after you signed off for the day? Feeling worried about work is very common. Up to 94% of the workforce is dealing with work-related stress (source). Here is a powerful strategy to get your worries in check and get back to enjoying life.

How Your Mind Works Against You

The first step is to realize that your mind is wired to help you, but prone to certain errors. Worry is a form of stress that triggers some of these mental errors. When you experience stress or danger, your mind wants to protect you and goes into fight or flight mode. This can be helpful if you’ve encountered a hungry tiger that escaped from the zoo. But it can really mess up your day when it happens at the wrong time, like while you’re on vacation or unwinding after work.

Fight

If your mind opts for the fight response, stress is going to transform into anger. Anger is how the mind gives you the energy and focus to fight back and save your life when you are in danger.

Flight

If your mind ops for the flight response, stress is going to transform into fear and anxiety. Fear is how the mind convinces the body to run away and escape the danger.

Both of these reactions are useful when you are under stress or in danger. However, they are supposed to stop once your situation improves (like ending your workday.) Fight or flight does not help with future situations you are worried about.

Uncertainty is Gasoline on the Worry Fire

The second step is to understand that uncertainty is what’s actually tormenting you. Your mind will help you deal with stress and danger, but it expects it to end. When you worry, your mind focuses on the future possibility of stress that may or may not happen. Your mind still triggers anger, fear, and stress, but it has no way of knowing when to stop.

The Solution That Melts Away Worry

Feeling worried about work is often an inefficient attempt of the mind to solve a problem (source). It’s usually triggered by a level of uncertainty about the future. The best way to combat uncertainty is with facts and details. Once your mind can focus on facts, the feeling of being worried about work starts to melt away. Your mind will start to organize the details of the situation in search of a solution.

A Single Word To Shift Your Mind

The simple path to shift your mind into problem-solving mode is to ask yourself, “Why?” Then think about the situation you’re worried about and identify what details are actually the problem. Repeat the process multiple times. Every time you answer, you’ll get a little more specific and your mind will have more details to work with. You may find out that deep down, your mind is worrying about a very unlikely worst-case scenario.

Example

Your mind doesn’t know how to strategize generalities like, “Ugh, I’m worried about work. Next week is going to be awful.”

Stop and ask yourself, “Why is work going to be awful next week…? Actually, I’m nervous about the big presentation on Thursday, and will probably worry about it all week.”

Solution or Dig Deeper

If you can come up with ideas to build confidence about your presentation, move into solutioning. You might decide to practice the presentation more or even record yourself to see what you look like. If you’re not ready for solutioning yet, repeat the process and go deeper. “Why am I so nervous about the big presentation on Thursday…? Because it’s on a topic that I don’t know much about and I don’t want to look like an idiot.”

Continue Digging Deeper

“But I’ve done my research and triple checked everything. Why do I think I’ll look like an idiot…? Because I don’t know how they will react. Even if I do a good job, they still might not like it.” At this point, you might start to realize that you’ve done everything you can to prepare yourself, but other people’s reactions are out of your control. Still, your mind may come up with ideas. You might send out the deck early to a few colleagues for feedback, or chat about main points over lunch.

The Unlikely Worst Case Scenario

“Why am I so worried that they won’t like the presentation…? Because if they don’t like the presentation, they might not like me. What if I never get asked to present again? What if I get fired?” At this point, it becomes clear that your mind has blown up the presentation into a possible career-ending moment. But how likely is it that you would be fired over a single presentation? If you worked hard and practiced, could you still perform so poorly that they’d fire you? Would they even be asking you to give a presentation if you were the type of employee they were thinking of letting go of?

Real Life Application

Your mind is very powerful, but it makes mistakes sometimes and needs a little help. If you can get specific enough, your mind will come up with solutions every time. When you feel worried about work, feed your mind more information so it can switch over to solutioning. If it’s not happening fast enough, borrow a few extra brains. Once you can identify the details, you may find others in your peer group have experienced and overcome similar situations. Details allow you to bring more people into the solutioning process and find answers fast.

If you are struggling with worrying at work, you may want to talk with your coach or other trusted advisor. Let them move you through the process until you have enough details to begin solutioning. Remember, your mind is trying to save your life and filling your brain with enough anger and fear to escape a hungry tiger. It’s perfectly normal that you might need a little help getting in a different frame of mind.

Whether with help or on your own, you can always question your worries. Collect enough details and you’ll be back on track before you know it.

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