299: How To Stop Worrying

Tanya Dalton: Hello, hello, everyone, and welcome to the Intentional Advantage podcast. I’m your host, Tanya Dalton. This is episode 299. We have a great show planned for today, we’re piggybacking off of that whole idea we talked about in our last episode.
Our last episode was called The Power of Imperfect Decisions, and I loved how so many of you reacted to that term of imperfect decisions.
Because, well, truly, all decisions are imperfect, we can’t see into the future. We can’t control what happens. So anytime we are making decisions, That adds a lot of worry onto our plate. So I knew that for today’s episode, I wanted to talk about how to reduce your worry, how to worry less, how we can free ourselves by letting go of a lot of that stress and worry that comes not just with decision making, but just, you know, everyday life.
I know for me as somebody who was a big worrier for years and years, I worried and worried and worried, and now I don’t worry. how much better that makes me feel.
So we’re going to be talking about that today. We’re going to talk about how you can worry less. We’re going to talk about how you can let go of that uncertainty and what that looks like. And we’re even going to talk about what kind of dog lives in your head. I know that sounds weird, but it’ll all make sense once we get started with today’s show.
Does your life spark joy? I’m not asking if your life is good or if life feels okay. Does it spark joy? When was the last time you slipped into bed at night and thought, today felt amazing? Because if it’s been more than two or three days, that’s too long. I’m Tanya Dalton, a best selling author, motivational speaker, seven figure entrepreneur, and oh yeah, wife and mom.
So I get it. I understand the stress of daily life. As a productivity expert, I’m here to help you choose the extraordinary life. This season, we will be exploring how we can create more joy and intention into every single day. And it doesn’t have to be so hard. This is The Intentional Advantage.
[00:02:11] How to Stop Worrying All the Time
Tanya Dalton: I thought that today would be a great day for us to talk about worry, because this is definitely a time where you and I could be very, very worried. It’s the middle of May and Jack has been gone for, as we record this, Jack’s been gone for a whole week. He is over in Europe for two months traveling basically by himself.
And I found it really ironic when I was mapping out the season, I knew we were going to talk about decision making, which we talked about in that last episode, the power of imperfect decisions. And the whole idea of talking about worry makes sense because Well, those two go hand in hand, decision making and worrying about the decision making.
But the irony of the fact that we’re doing this episode when our child is all the way across the ocean is kind of crazy, because this is a time that should be filled with worry for the two of us.
John Dalton: 100%. Yeah. I mean. 10 years ago this would have been totally different and not just because he would have been 11, which would have been not appropriate, but even if it was 10 years ago and he was 21, we would have handled this very, very differently. right now, I mean, I have to say, I’m very proud of us for being so hands off and letting him make his own plans and his own mistakes and he’s having fun.
Tanya Dalton: He is having a fantastic time and I think that’s the thing that’s been so fun is literally we wake up in the morning because he’s five hours ahead of us with where he is now and our phone is filled with pictures and things that he’s doing and it’s interesting because you and I were talking about this.
I used to be when we first got married and. I would say for the majority of our marriage, I was a worrier. I worried about everything incessantly. I was just such a worrier. I would worry about all kinds of things. And now today I don’t worry at all. I rarely worry. Do you agree that, I mean, it’s kind of a crazy transition, but I don’t worry at all anymore.
John Dalton: No, I totally agree. You know, in You know, when we met, you were a worrier so much that your dad worried about you so much. He gave you a book called Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff because he wanted you to just like keep reading it over and over and over again. So you would stop worrying about everything all the time.
And I don’t even know where that book is anymore and you certainly don’t need it. So it doesn’t matter where it is, but you’re a completely different person.
Tanya Dalton: Yeah. And I think it’s interesting because I self identified as a worrier. And I think a lot of people do they say, well, I’m just a worrier. And that’s, that’s the end of it. It did take some work and some intentionality. Some of that. We’re going to be talking about today on the episode of how I shifted from being essentially a worry wart into being somebody who rarely worries or stresses about anything. And for me, it is very freeing. It allows me to really allow my brain to focus on what matters because the worrying doesn’t help anything. Truly, as much as you worry, it doesn’t change any outcomes. I think that’s a, that’s a big thing. And if you believe in any of those laws of attraction, quite frankly, if you are worrying about something, If you believe in the law of attraction, you’re literally calling it in.
Every time you’re thinking about it, you’re bringing that closer to you.
[00:05:30] How Stress Shows Up in Your Body
Tanya Dalton: So for me to go from incessantly worrying to not worrying has been amazing because I feel like it has freed me up and it has made me feel physically so much better. I mean, truly, when we worry, there is a physical response in our body, it triggers the stress response, which means it suppresses certain hormones and it elevates other hormones and that you feel in your body and a lot of that can turn into disease. And even if you’re a person who thinks to yourself, I don’t know about that, I want you to think right now about something that worries you, something that maybe stresses you out, Think about that situation just for a second. Do you feel it in your body? Yeah, you feel it somewhere. You feel it maybe in the back of your neck or in your shoulders. Maybe you’re like me. I felt a lot of it in my stomach and my stomach would get upset. My stomach would be in knots or I’d feel this tension in different areas. So when we stop worrying, it really does allow our bodies, first of all, to work much better.
We know our bodies work better when they’re not stressed. But it also allows our brain to be able to focus on other things. And I think this is a thing is, so often we store a lot of our emotions. We’ve talked about that on the podcast before. When we’re angry, we feel it in our body. When we’re sad, we feel it.
When we’re happy, think about anytime you have big emotions, we have that stored in our body and if we don’t release it, it’s going to stay in there. And that’s what ends up causing a lot of diseases and a lot, there’s all kinds of amazing research with, people who are really controlling or really want to control their situations and how that’s correlated with multiple sclerosis and some of these other diseases.
So it is not only really good for your brain, but it’s good for your body to let go of this stress and the worry. And I think this is the thing is.
We feel like worrying is productive.
Because it’s like, well, even if there’s not something I can do, I can worry about it. Worrying isn’t productive. If you’ve listened to this podcast or read my books, you know, productivity isn’t about doing more.
It’s doing what’s most important. Is worrying the thing that’s most important? Worrying is just keeping your mind spinning and busy. So a lot of times that is one of the reasons why we feel almost compelled to worry, that if our kid goes to Europe for two months on a shoestring budget, like my own child, I say child, but he’s 21.
So he’s what a man child, I guess, in many ways, still a child, but also an adult. He’s totally having a child, but worrying about him really isn’t helping him. And honestly, if I was worrying and asking him all these worrying questions, it would, it would take a chink out of his armor. It would make him feel like I didn’t have the confidence in him, which would steal away some of his own self confidence.
John Dalton: I think you’re right. Worrying is the exact opposite of productive, if you think about it, it really makes you freeze. It’s like a, like a fear response that you’re actually not doing anything about what you’re worrying about.
You’re just, you’re just sitting there worrying, making no progress. So. it is super unhelpful for a hundred reasons, like you said, it’s not productive. It’s bad for your mental and physical health.
[00:08:55] How Your Brain is Wired to Worry
Tanya Dalton: There is this negative cycle of thoughts. That once they start, it almost feels like a roller coaster that you just can’t get off of. And it just keeps going again and again and again. And a lot of times we are thinking about worst case scenarios, anticipated threats, problems.
Or a lot of times there’s scenarios that reflect our own feelings of low self worth, We feel like, Oh, we should have changed this or we could have controlled this. Or what if I had done these things? And to be honest with you, a lot of that negativity is it’s wired into our brains. It’s wired there.
John Dalton:
Tanya Dalton: I talked about this in my second book in On Purpose, this idea and this concept that our brain is naturally wired to want to focus in on the negative. It does that as a survival technique. There’s a neuroscientist who talks about the fact that the negative thoughts and ideas that we have, They’re like velcro to your brain.
So they stick, but the positive ones, they’re like Teflon. They slide right on off. And that’s a survival technique. It’s because our brain wants us to survive. Of course it does. So with our cave ancestors, we wanted to remember the negative things. We wanted to remember, Oh, fire burns. So let’s not touch it.
We wanted to remember, Oh, you can’t pet a saber tooth tiger. our brain is naturally wired that way. So it’s not surprising. And there’s nothing wrong with you if you feel like, gosh, I do always go to the negative. Just know that is a very natural thing. But honestly, a lot of these worries, these ideas, these scenarios, these stories we’re telling ourselves about what might happen or what could happen, they’re not steeped in any sort of truth.
They’re rooted in these made up ideas or concept of what could happen, rather than just the truth. None of it is Based on reality. And a lot of times it is actually the stress and the worrying leading up to the event that causes all the suffering or all the anxiety, not the event itself. We’ve had several conversations about difficult conversations on this podcast, and you’ve heard me say before, it’s the first five minutes of those difficult conversations that’s the hardest.
You know why? It’s the buildup. It’s getting to the conversation. It’s worrying about it. It’s losing sleep over it. Then when you have the conversation, huh, so much easier.
John Dalton: Absolutely. And I had to have one of those difficult conversations recently with, a family member. And I would argue with you, it wasn’t the first five minutes of the conversation that were the hardest. It was the five days leading up to the conversation that was the hardest, I think that’s what you mean when you’re talking about that anticipation. but that’s so much worse than the actual event, whether that’s, You know, you have to give a presentation, the preparing for it, gearing up, getting in that mindset to step on stage is much harder than actually giving the presentation itself.
because it’s, it’s that worry. And I think, the other thing that I wanted to touch on when we were talking about this a couple of days ago, one of the things that I guess never really occurred to me when I think about worrying, I’m always thinking about, worrying about things in the future, Like, what’s going to happen. But I think when we were talking about it, it was kind of interesting that I had never thought about this before, but we worry about things in the past too, so it’s not just what if it’s, if only I guess would be the term I would use because we think about things that happened in the past.
We’re like, gosh, if I had just made this decision, this would have been totally different. And that is equally as unhelpful, right? We don’t learn or gain anything from that, other than maybe just set some bad patterns into our brains. so, you know, when you think about worry, think about not worrying about things that have already happened because that’s, equally as unimportant when you’re really trying to work through some things.
[00:12:39] The Unsolvable Problem with Worrying
Tanya Dalton: Well, I think you bring up a really good point there too, because a lot of the things that we’re worrying about are not really solvable. There are solvable problems and there are problems that are not solvable. I mean, I tell my kids all the time, all problems can be solved, but the truth is getting into a magic time machine and going back in the past to change it.
That’s a problem that can’t be solved. Or using that same magic time machine to go in the future and affect what the future is going to be. That also cannot be solved. When I was diving into the research of worry, I was finding that there are a lot of themes that come up with worry. The most common worries are things like job security, money, relationships, especially our kids.
And I think that’s a big one, But the truth is, we can’t control Yes, there are parts of it we can control, but we can’t control the whole thing. So, for example, with Jack being in Europe, me worrying about him making his train or, being smart and mindful while he’s walking around and not leaving his backpack open or being able to catch his flight.
Those are not things I can control. But what I can’t control is the fact that I realize, you know what, when my kids were young, and I think we’ve talked about this on the podcast before, when they were as young as five years old, I would have them lead us through the airport. I would say, okay, where’s our next flight going?
They would check the board. They knew how to get us to the next gate. They knew how to catch the trains and read the signs. So I was able to control that part of the worry through some of my actions in the past or we sat down with him and we had conversations. Hey, listen, you got to be smart when you’re walking around.
Make sure you’re not looking at your phone. You need to have your backpack closed. Make sure you close it this way. So there’s certain things we can do. to help mitigate these what ifs, but there’s a lot that we cannot, and it is those things that we cannot control that we have to let go of. There are so many things in this world that we cannot control.
Truthfully, the only things we can control are ourselves. How we react, how we think, what we do, the actions that we take. I can’t control what Jack does. I can’t control what Kay does. I can’t control what John does. Sometimes I try to doesn’t work But what we can do is we can set people up for success And I think that’s the difference is we have to understand that we have to relinquish that control being okay with some uncertainty in this world because That’s how the world works, and that’s how other people work.
All of us are on our own journey. And I know for me, when I had that realization with my own kids, that every one of us is on our own journey. I make choices that affect my life. And I talked about this in the Substack last week, where, you know, if I trace the timeline of my life, even with things like when I met John, or how I got my job, or how I got my book deal, I never could have predicted that pattern of events bringing that to fruition, right?
All I could control was what I was doing next and what I was choosing to do.
[00:15:45] Your Ego and Worry
Tanya Dalton: When we’re trying to control situations or other people, a lot of that comes from right here. In our minds. It’s our ego and we touched on this idea and this concept of ego back in that episode We had earlier this season with Rachael Jayne when we were talking about how your ego is really there as your friend But your ego’s job is to keep you safe.
[00:16:09] How To Be Grateful for Past Mistakes
Tanya Dalton: And I love what Eckhart Tolle says about your ego He says
To the ego, the present moment hardly exists only past and future are considered important.
I think that’s so valid and so true. We’re so busy ruminating on the past, thinking about all the things we didn’t do well, or worrying about our future that we forget about the now.
We forget about today and every single decision you have made in your entire life was made in the the now 20 years ago, right? It wasn’t the past 20 years ago. It was the present. It was the moment you were in. It was the now you were making those decisions and you were making them to the best of your ability with the limited resources that you had at the time.
I mean, think about. how much smarter you are now, 20 years later, all the wisdom that you have, and the different perspectives that you have, and the different ways you have of, of thinking that you didn’t have 20 years ago. this is why, and I talked about this on my Substack,
It’s not about forgiving yourself for what you did in the past. It’s really being grateful for decisions you made in the past.
And there’s a big difference in that because at the time in that now moment, you had very different information than you have now with your, rear view mirror looking back in time. So it is letting go of that control of, I should have known.
How would you have known? Right? Or, I could have chosen this. Well, you had no idea where that was going to lead. All we can do is make the best choices and decisions in the moment. But our ego is putting us in that magic time machine, going back in the past, or flying us forward into the future about what might happen, or what could happen. I love talking about ego because for me, you know, we talked about that whole idea that I used to be a worrier, like a big, huge worrier. I worried and worried and worried and worried some more. And now I don’t. And a lot of it is that understanding, first of all, That I can’t control outcomes. All I can do is make my best decisions that I possibly can.
But it’s also because I now have a much better relationship with my ego. Your ego is what’s driving all of those what if scenarios for the future. Because your ego is, is afraid, right? And again, we talked about this on that episode with Rachael Jayne. Your ego is your friend. It wants you to survive. It wants you to do amazing things.
But it’s also very scared and it wants you to do things just like you’ve done it. And John, you shared with me quite a while back this way of thinking that Sonia Choquette talked about with your ego. You want to talk about that really quickly? Because for me, this was the game changer.
[00:18:59] How to Take Charge of the Inner Critic in Your Head
Tanya Dalton: This was the thing that shifted how I spoke with my ego, how my ego spoke with me, because your ego is that voice inside your head, not the nice voice. Not the kind voice, but the voice that’s like, Hey, you look fat in those pants. Or, Hey, you looked really dumb today when you gave that presentation. Or, Why didn’t you do these things?
That was dumb, right? That’s your ego.
John Dalton: I think we all know that especially if you’ve listened to some of your episodes in the past, your egos main job is to keep you safe. That’s the only reason That it exists. So that’s why it looks in the past and sees what’s happened before to try to predict the future in order to keep you from harm or making mistakes.
and I always looked at ego as something that you had to fight against your ego. It was like a battle of who was in charge. Sonia, positioned it in a much different way, and I was like, Oh, that makes so much sense. She talks about ego, that your ego is like a dog, Your dog is, man’s best friend,they’re the one who can smell the bear out in the backyard and gets up in the middle of the night and starts barking.
Yes, it’s annoying, but the dog is trying to keep you safe. And the whole point of the conversation that she was having was, you’re in charge of the ego, just like you would be in charge of your dog. You are, the master of your ego. So it’s your job to, listen to the dog. The dog is there to keep you safe, but you’re also in charge.
You should have a relationship. It’s not a fight with your ego. It’s a relationship that you have with your ego. And you need to be able to tell your dog like, Hey, it’s okay. This is what we’re going to do. I know you’re going to try to keep us safe. We’re going to be safe. Trust me. We’re all going to be good.
So there’s really much more of a back and forth. And the biggest eye opener for me again, was you’re in charge of your ego. You are the master of your ego. So it’s not that fight. It’s a relationship.
Tanya Dalton: Absolutely. And you know, it’s funny because you say that about the bear, but truthfully, Lucy does wake up sometimes in the middle of the night and she starts barking because we’ll have a bear in the backyard. Sometimes there’s no bear in the backyard at all. Lucy’s just barking for no reason, but we don’t get up in the middle of the night and go and kick her.
We don’t yell at her and tell her she’s a terrible dog. Every time we go, okay, Lucy, it’s okay. There’s no bear, or, or she’s run the bear away, quite frankly, right? So we say, oh, you’re a good dog, go back to bed. Everybody wants to go back to sleep, go back to bed. We don’t fuss at her, we don’t fight her, we don’t yell at her, we don’t kick her.
We tell her she’s a good dog, but we also tell her to quiet down, because everybody’s trying to go to sleep. And it’s that same idea with your ego. For me, this was like, oh, A lightbulb moment, when we talked about this, that your ego is there to protect you just like a dog does because it wants to keep you safe.
But the big catch, as you said, John, is that you are in charge. So it was really interesting When you shared this concept with me that Sonia Choquette talked about, you and I sat down and we talked about what do we think our dog looks like?
What kind of dog is it? And so we shut our eyes and we thought about what kind of dog, and she doesn’t get into a process for figuring out your dog or how to train your dog. She just says, it’s a dog. You and I were talking about it and I started to really think about, well, how does my ego talk to me?
What does it speak to me like? What does it sound like? And I thought about all the different dogs out there. There’s lots of different dogs. There are small dogs, big dogs, medium dogs, and guard dogs and purse dogs, right? There’s thousands of different kinds of dogs. And I began to realize the way that my dog talks to me, I like to think of it as a standard poodle.
It’s like one of those big, tall poodles that has the kind of frou frou haircut, because my ego would speak to me in these kind of haughty tones of, you are such an idiot. You’re so dumb. I can’t believe you did those things. And it’s very kind of snooty in the way that it would speak to me. So I started picturing my ego.
As a standard poodle, as one of these tall, big poodles. And I decided to name my poodle Pierre. So Pierre is the name of my ego. So when I needed Pierre to quiet down, I would address Pierre. Now you, on the other hand, John, you saw your dog differently,
John Dalton: Yeah, for me, my dog, and this just was immediate to me. The course that I was taking or that I was watching with Sonia was about intuition. So it was all just like okay What’s coming to me? And it was Immediately it was a Doberman Pinscher like a very kind of rough and scary looking dog, but also, very highly trained and and His name was Rex, so mine wasn’t the You know, the overly misogynistic, chain smoking Frenchman like your dog.
Mine was more of the, what did you call it? It was like the, not a junkyard dog, but he was like a guard dog for a high end Coke dealer, right? So he was very polished, but scary at the same time.
Tanya Dalton: And yet also highly trainable, right? I loved how yours was not a junkyard dog. It was a dog for cocaine dealers, like mafia people. Mine was with the cheap French cigarettes and the hotties, right? Talking. Yours was just like, you’re an idiot. You’re an idiot. You’re not smart. Right?
Mine was like, uh, so it really did help to tap into what does that voice? And if I were to put a dog with it, what would that dog be? So standard poodle for me and for you, the Doberman pincher. And I think what’s been fascinating is since we’ve done that, I literally have conversations with my ego all the time because when.
Pierre starts barking really loudly at the bear, which there is no bear truly in my life, other than the ones tearing apart my bird feeder in the backyard. We do have those. But when it starts barking really loudly about something that maybe would be scary or unsettling, I have these conversations with Pierre and I’m like, Hey, this is what’s coming down the pipes.
Here’s what’s going to be happening. I need you to take a deep breath and I’m going to need you to sit. And I need you just to sit there. Well, I deal with this. I know this is happening and that has totally shifted everything. Once I made my ego, not this disembodied voice in my head that I cannot control, because that was one of the stories I was telling myself is I have this voice in my head.
It’s always there. There’s nothing I can do about it. Once I was like, Oh no, this is Pierre, the giant standard poodle with the frou frou haircut. I could say, you need to sit. I need you to be quiet because I’m doing this. And once I started creating this conversation back and forth, that’s when a lot of my worry went away because my dog wasn’t barking.
That’s when a lot of the negativity in my head went away because again, Wasn’t barking or I was addressing it. So it felt more at ease. It understood what was happening And I know that seems weird to talk to the voice that’s in your head or that, you know Kind of diatribe that’s going on. But what’s weirder having that going on and pretending like it doesn’t exist
Cause it’s like trying to ignore the toddler that’s jumping on your back when you’re trying to read a book. It’s so disruptive. Address it and shift that behavior. And when I did that, It was like, Oh, all that worry went away. And I know for you, it’s been the same, right, John?
[00:26:40] What Kind of Dog is In Your Head?
John Dalton: Yeah, it really was. And the more I thought about it, the more that initial choice of the dog made sense. You know, like I’m a very quiet and reserved person. And I think I had over time unknowingly trained my dog to just keep people away, because part of what I learned later in life is the reason that people didn’t approach me is because I seemed kind of aloof and unapproachable when really I was just lacking confidence and a little bit scared.
So they were approaching me like they would approach that dog, right? you look at that Doberman Pinscher sitting behind the fence and you think, well, I’m not going to walk up there and stick my hand through the fence because it’s going to bite my fingers off. It’s a little bit intimidating. and I think that’s how people saw me in a certain sense of.
Like, well, he just is not interested in talking to me, so I’m going to leave him alone. And that’s exactly what I had trained Rex to do, is just bark and scare people away. And now that I have this relationship with Rex, and I understand how we can work together, now I can invite people in and he feels comfortable.
he can lay on the floor while I’m having a conversation with people. and he doesn’t feel like he has to just keep people away all the time because We have that relationship now. It’s, I haven’t just abdicated my safety to him. it’s, it’s something that I’ve done much more consciously.
Tanya Dalton: I like that idea that You had trained him to keep people away, right? The other thing that we do is we don’t train the dog at all. So the dog is just wild and loose. And, you know, running crazy, jumping all over people, dragging mud all over the place. And then we’re like, why is this dog all over the place?
Because we haven’t trained it. Just like a regular dog. You have to teach it how to do things, so then it will do things. And once you teach it, it’s so much easier. I definitely think that is something that we should talk about. On my sub stack, because this idea while Sonia didn’t have an exercise or a way to dive into figuring out your dog.
I want to dive into that and figure out how you can figure out what kind of dog you have, because it is illuminating when you can put. And I think dogs are such a great 1, because we all know dogs have different personalities, different breeds act in different ways. Maybe yours is a bloodhound, or maybe it’s a, you know, a doberman pincher.
Like Johns, or maybe it’s a great Dane, or maybe it’s a chihuahua that’s just always shaking, you know, like those little, little chihuahuas or, you know, who knows, but I want to dive into how you can figure out what your dog is. So let’s talk about that on the sub stack. The other thing that I’m going to talk about either this week or next week is, is five ways that you can really.
Let go of the worry because there are definitely some strategies that you can let go of worrying because the worrying is not serving you. I promise you it is not. I know from my own personal experience how much freer, how much more open, how much I am that I don’t have all of this extra added stress that I’m putting on myself because quite frankly, most of it is self self imposed.
Most of it is just things I’m adding to myself, right? And adding to the, to the stress in my body and creating this tension. So that’s another thing that I’m going to include for my premium access. People is a relaxation meditation that I use that really helps me. Take away a lot of that worry and that stress.
So if you are not part of my sub stack, go to TanyaDalton.com/connect. We’re having some fantastic conversations over there and everything we talk about on the podcast, we go deeper over there on the sub stack. So I write articles, there’s activities, there’s exercises, there’s lots of ways that we go deeper than we can in these short podcast episodes.
So I think you would love to be there. I would love to have you there, quite frankly, TanyaDalton.com/connect. And as I mentioned in the last episode, may is my birthday month. This is my 50th birthday month because I am turning 50 on May 27th. And I wanted to do something fun this month.
So I wanted to give you prizes for sharing the sub stack. The, my sub stack is called not rocket science because truthfully, everything I share over there is simple and easy. None of it is difficult. It’s not rocket science. So if you could share the sub stack, I will give you prizes. And if you head over to that, TanyaDalton.com/connect, you’ll see a little share tab there at the top. You click that, you get a unique link. Share it with your friends. All you have to do is send it to your friends. They don’t have to sign up for a paid subscription or anything. All they have to do is subscribe. You can get all kinds of prizes, including a 30 minute call with me.
So we’re doing that for the month of May because you know what? I like to give away presents. I like to get presents, I like to give away presents, and May’s my favorite month. So if you could do that, that would be fantastic. That’s a great way to celebrate my 50th birthday and I The 300th episode that’s coming up with our next episode, which happens to land the day after my 50th birthday, which is kind of fun.
So I’d love to see you over there. all right, let’s wrap up today’s show because I know we’re running low on time. I want you to be thinking about What do you think your ego looks like? If your ego was a dog, what would it look like?
I’m going to give you some questions to think about that and go deeper over on the sub stack, but I want you to think about that right now, because truthfully, worrying isn’t serving you. No matter how much we try to make. the future fit this certain mold of what we think we need to do. That if I do X and then Y, and then I go to Z and then I go here and I do these things, then this is going to happen.
I guarantee you, if you look back on any event, anything big in your life, how you met your significant other, how you ended up getting in your current job, how you met your best friend, how you did anything. Think of something like a major tentpole event. I want you to think about that. And I want you to go and I want you to track the breadcrumbs behind there and see, how did I get there?
How did I actually end up meeting the person I’m married to? Or how did I actually end up with this job? I guarantee if you had on that front end, tried to create that path, you wouldn’t have been able to connect those dots at all. You can only connect the dots. looking backwards. Steve Jobs talks about that.
We can’t connect the dots moving forward. We can only connect them in looking back. So by worrying and trying to control all of those events, we’re making it so our true destiny doesn’t even happen. Truly, you are on a collision course. It is bound to happen. It’s going to happen for you.
So, let go of the worry. Let go of the stress. I can promise you, you’re going to be so much happier for doing that. You know, for me, I used to worry about being on the right path. And I would pray, oh, just let me make the right choices. Let me do the right thing so I can be on the right path.
I wish I had realized a long time ago, I’m always on the right path. The path I’m on, with all of its twists and turns and mistakes and bad decisions, it’s always been my path. And if I could have gone back in time and told me, 20 years ago, you know what, dad is right, don’t sweat the small stuff, ah, would have made a huge difference.
Because when you let go of the worry, that’s when you know, you’ve got the intentional advantage.
Ready to take action on what we talked about on today’s episode? The easiest way to get started is my 5 Minute Miracle Mini Course. It’s normally 97, but you get it for free when you join my free sub stack. It’ll boost your productivity and it will double your happiness. Plus, you’ll get access to all kinds of extras from the podcast.
Just go to tanyadalton. com slash connect. And don’t forget to follow The Intentional Advantage on your podcast player so you never miss an episode.

**This transcript is created by AI, so please excuse any typos, misspellings and grammar mistakes.

Tanya Dalton is a productivity speaker and motivator. She speaks to corporate audiences about how to be more productive, how to set goals and how to retain team by creating meaningful work.