Stressing about small stuff one day at a time accumulates to a lot of time being wasted.
One of my favourite books (I know I’ve said that a few times in this blog) Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff was a huge eye opener. It reminded me on how the stuff that I stressed about was actually small, and by stressing about it I made it a bigger problem than it is.
This all correlates with the concepts written in my two other favourite books, The Compound Effect and Atomic Habits. The Compound Effect mentions how doing one little thing one time doesn’t make a difference, but over an accumulated amount of time it does… it applies to the small stuff we stress about!
Stressing about something small one time wouldn’t really make a difference, but if we keep repeating that action, it would eventually make a big difference to the way we respond to the events in our life.
Atomic Habits mentioned how our results are a reflection of our habits. For example, our grades are a reflection of our study habits, or our work performance is a reflection of our work habits. Hence, the way we respond to problems is a reflection of our habits on dealing with small stuff.
As you can see, stressing about small stuff all correlates to the compound effect of our habits. The Compound Effect was really good in emphasizing that we can’t expect overnight results. Just like how eating one bag of chips one day isn’t going to immediately make us change our weight, completely stopping stressing about small stuff is the same.
This blog post is going to outline small steps to stop stressing about the small stuff. It came from my favourite chapters of the book, and I definitely recommend that you give the entire book a read if you like what I had written about the book in this blog post!
Transform Your Relationship to Problems
Here’s a newsflash that many people surprisingly forget about – we can never get rid of problems completely.
Problems are a part of our life, and life is not about getting rid of them. Instead, it’s about dealing with them. Because problems are not avoidable, the best thing we can do is deal with them the right way. One mindset shift that can help us deal with them the right way, is to view our problems as an opportunity to grow and become a stronger person.
When we transform our relationship to problems from being an enemy to a friend, we tend to stress less about the small stuff. When we see problems as a way to make us more patient and resilient, we begin to see that problems don’t have to always go against us, they can work for us.
For example, something small could include being stuck in traffic. When we view this problem as an opportunity of patience and learning that we should just leave the house earlier next time, the small problem actually works for us in the long term.
Takeaway – You can transform your relationship with problems for the problems to work for you rather than against you!
Be Happy Where You Are
Have you ever heard of someone say “I’ll be happy once I get (fill in the blank)?” Or have you ever said that line yourself? I know that I have!
I have done this especially when I go to work on my goals. I used to say to myself that “I’ll only be happy if I got that A in my test”, or “I’ll only be happy once I accomplish x, y, z”. It’s crazy how that there are many of us that are actually postponing our own happiness until we “get something”.
Let’s think about this though, let’s say that we’ll only be happy once we get something, accomplish something, or reach a certain milestone. What happens once we get it? Well, we’ll feel happy for a moment, but then…. there’s something else that we are going to want.
When I kept in the back of my mind that there is always going to be something that I want to accomplish, and that there’s always going to be something new that I want, I stopped delaying my own happiness until I got it. I’ve been told to be happy where I am, even though I haven’t accomplished my goals yet. Because at the end of the day, once I do accomplish a goal, there is going to be a new goal.
This is not to say to stop wishing for new things or stop setting new goals every time you accomplish one. There is nothing wrong at ALL with setting new goals (it’s actually a really good thing to set goals!) and wanting something. But we need to stop postponing our own happiness until we get or achieve those things. Because if we keep postponing our own happiness, we’re actually postponing our happiness indefinitely.
Takeaway – Stop postponing your happiness indefinitely. Be happy where you are now, new things will come to you eventually.
Be Grateful When You’re Feeling Good and When You’re Feeling Bad
I’ve mentioned a few times of a very simple but effective personal development habit to have gratitude.
In my personal opinion, gratitude is one of the simplest habits to build. It doesn’t involve any big amounts of self-discipline or willpower, and any cost whatsoever! For example, building a habit to run requires a lot of self-discipline or willpower, especially if you never gotten into the habit before. Or even building the habit to go to the gym requires cost in your end. But with gratitude, it requires very little self-discipline if not zero self-discipline because it is really easy to get into the habit of it.
By feeling grateful for just three things once you wake up, and three things before you go to sleep, doing that for about 2-3 weeks, or a month can make a difference to your mindset. And you’re doing this exercise regardless if you’re feeling good or feeling bad.
It’s easy to be grateful when things are going good, but when things are going bad it may be a bit more challenging. But why are you still grateful when things are going bad? Well, during harder times, that’s when you need gratitude all the more. Because it is the harder times when it’s hard to see what you currently have right now. Especially during this pandemic, people facing various challenges because of COVID-19, from financial difficulties to loss of loved ones, it’s understandable that it’s hard to find what’s the good is going on.
It all links back to transforming your relationship with your problems. We already know that they are a part of life, and life is not about getting rid of them. When we shift your mindset to see our problems as an opportunity be more resilient and become a stronger person, we’re able to see that despite what we’re going through, there are still many things that we can be grateful for. That’s why when it comes to transforming your relationship with problems, gratitude is the most simplest but effective tool to shift our mindset to view them from that perspective.
Takeaway – Gratitude is a simple habit to build that could change the way that you view your problems, and the challenges in your life
Imagine Yourself at Your Own Funeral
Okay, I’ll admit that when I read the first line of this chapter, I freaked out.
But when I did give the chapter a chance and gave it a read, it made complete sense. It was actually a pretty good strategy to remind you what is most important in your life.
While it can be a bit scary to think about, it is a big eyeopener into what we actually spend our life doing. I remember when I watched YouTube videos on what people learn too late in life, and one of those things was worrying too much about the little stuff.
Imagining ourselves at our own funeral reminds us on what we actually gave importance to, and what we had neglected. If we spent a lot of our life stressing about the small stuff that happened, it may be a big eyeopener to us that it wasn’t worth stressing about anyway. In fact, we could’ve put that energy towards working on something of greater importance and impact.
When you think about it, stressing about the small stuff isn’t always about worrying all the time, it’s also about taking away our mental energy that could’ve been used for working on something that could change our lives for the better. Stressing about small stuff one day isn’t going to make a difference, but if we continue to do it and make a habit out of it, it accumulates to a lot of time and energy wasted in the long term. That’s a bit scary to think about.
It’s the same thing with someone who spent $15 on lunch every single day for work, and it accumulates to the long term over $3500, which could’ve been used towards investing in a passion project, or a deposit for the house.
It’s no different with stressing about the small stuff. We want to preserve our time and energy for something that we can invest more in. Time is more important because unlike money, you can’t get it back! Hence, stressing the small stuff is just not worth it. It’s not worth stressing about when imagining our own funeral.
Takeaway – Think about what is actually worth our attention.
There’s More to Life than the Small Stuff
At the end of the day, the things that we go through become of the past. What happened today won’t exist tomorrow. What happened an hour ago doesn’t exist right now. No matter what we had gone through in a day, it’s going to end up in the past and all we can do is focus on the present, for our future.
Because yes, there is more to life than the small stuff that happens. There’s more to life than stressing about the traffic, the weather, the slow internet, and a slight delay in our schedule. The time and energy that we would’ve put into stressing about those things can be put to better use. Maybe try finding other passions, other hobbies, or build better habits – and yeah this is kind of my way to promote the other blog posts on my blog 😂
So live your life, build your passions, make a difference to this world. That is worth so much more than the little mundane things that happen in our days….
-Lauren 😊
Book(s) this post was inspired by:
(not sponsored in any way, nor are they affiliate links – I just really love the book!)
Disclaimer: If you think that any of what I had written was good, the credit actually belongs to the one whose book was the inspiration for this post. If there’s anything on here that you think is quite stupid, that’s 100% blame on me 🙂
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hi, this is Lauren! I’m a law grad from Melbourne, Australia. On laurenbarri.com, I create content on all things personal development, productivity, self-care, and habits! I am super passionate about these topics because of how they helped me in all areas of my life, and I want to share it with others!
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