daily practice

By Brad Beckstrom

I’ll admit it. I am a worrier. I’ve spent too much time worrying about things that never happened. It’s bad, I’ve even read book(s) about worrying and fear. I come from a whole family of worriers. When my Dad’s business was struggling, he used to take off his glasses and rub his eyebrows. I watched him rub them almost completely off! They grew back.

One thing I’ve learned is that we all have worries and fears. Think about worries and fear, I bet every person you know has at least one of these. Worries about Health, Family, Work, Finances or something silly like “the unknown”. Some folks worry about all of these to an extent, and then they listen to the news, or talk radio and worry about world events. If you worry, you’re in good company.

If everybody worries, why are some people so much better at dealing with it than others? Some are consumed by it, and others turn it into motivation. The key is developing a mental toughness allowing you to silence the worry voices, or at least put them in the back row of that noisy crowd of voices in your head. Just like the muscles in our body, the brain needs some exercise to keep it healthy. A healthy brain helps us develop mental toughness.

6 great ways to crush worry and develop mental toughness

Write your fears down and turn them into ideas.

Writing your worries down is a great way to frame up your fears and redefine them, even if it’s just a list or short paragraph. I woke up at 4:30 AM, worried about something so I thought I’d write about “worry” in a blog post. If you have this problem, keep a small notepad by the bed. If you wake up, forgot something or are worrying again, just write a quick note and go back to sleep. I like to think of this as moving the worry from my head to paper, so I can get back to sleep. It’s also helpful if you wake up with brilliant idea. I have a small moleskin notebook with the title “ideas” on the cover. When I write something in there I’m already reframing my worry as an idea. Tip: don’t use a smartphone for this. It’s fine during the day but you don’t want screen glare and notifications waking you up in the night. Avoid keeping your smartphone in the bedroom.

Put your fears in perspective.

A while back I was worried about my health, including high blood pressure and cholesterol. I remembered reading about Tabata training, a high intensity 20 minute exercise routine that I could do five days a week. I made a note about it then later researched it and wrote about it. When you frame up a fear and address it, you put it in perspective. Once I began to address my health with a short daily exercise habit, it allowed me to get that worry off the list. Many worries like money or health are repetitive, revolving around one or two things. Go after those first. [Read more…] about How to Crush Worry and Develop Mental Toughness

By Brad Beckstrom

Must. That’s a funny word, but it’s a word that came to me along with some serious thoughts. Not so much as a verb, you must do this, or you must do that, more like a noun. As in something that should not be overlooked or missed. More like, going deep on the important things is a must. Don’t overlook the musts.

About a year ago, I was pondering what old age would be like. I was struggling with what it might be, what risks or new discoveries may be in store. Would I be healthy or sick? Would I be rich or poor, and in what, friends, time, money, freedom? Outside of work, what was I doing to impact this. Did I even know what “this” was?

Instead of making another to do list or a list of goals, I decided to write down some things that I felt needed to be musts in my life moving forward. I decided that a must is something that needs to be considered before anything that’s not on the list. A must is something that will influence all decisions. The first few were pretty straightforward: family, friends, health. They are easy to write down, but when you consider the commitment to make these three words musts, that would be a pretty complete list in itself. It was too broad.

For example, when I put something like health on the list that means it’s a must, something that’s in my life every day, not just a “to do” that I may not get to. Family and friends seem pretty obvious, but how many of us let work commitments, travel or commuting get in front of these? I’ve done this in the past. After our first son was born, SuperK would turn up the volume whenever the Harry Chapin song Cat’s in the Cradle came on. A reminder that you could miss much of your child’s years at home if you blink. So if family and friends are at the top of your list of musts, understand the size of that commitment.

If your musts are too broad, big categories like family, friends and health may get replaced with other broad categories like work, sleep, decompress, and spend money. So, it’s best to break those musts down into actions that can can become good habits.

So, for example, under health my musts include: [Read more…] about Creating a list of musts, because you’ll need it someday.