from an ex-worrier

Read the online version here:

Confessions of an ex-worrier

This isn’t going to be my typical style of email.

There will be no business talk.

No brash words.

No wild, winding metaphors that eventually lead into why you should start working with me.

If you opened the Gmail app on your phone this morning hoping to hear some wise words about how to build your brand, write better content or make money online, then I’m sorry to disappoint you - you’re shit out of luck.

It is, however, going to be the most meaningful email I’ve ever written.

At least for me.

And it’s going to be a long one.

I’m sorry if you don’t have time to read it.

But for this one.

For this particular, one-off moment, I’m not willing to sacrifice depth in the name of brevity.

So if you don’t have 10-15 minutes spare this morning.

If you’re in a rush.

If you’ve got other things on your mind.

Please stop reading now - save this email for a time when you, well, have the time.

But if you’ve got a spare moment on this lovely Easter Friday.

If you fancy reading an email that isn’t about offers, marketing or personal brands.

And if you’re in the mood to hear a perspective shift that has had a more profound impact on my quality of life than any other.

Then I’d highly encourage you to stick a brew on, make yourself comfy, and dive into an email which I believe, or at least I hope, could in fact change your life.

Because this one’s for you.

Sound good?

OK - let’s get to it.

An unfortunately fortunate 25 years

By every conceivable metric, my life has been a roaring success.

I got straight A’s at school.

I’ve always had a loving family and bunch of friends around me.

And I feel fortunate enough to say that I’ve never had to deal with any real money troubles.

Sure, bad things have happened.

People I’ve loved have died.

I’ve made plenty of mistakes.

And I’ve certainly had my fair share of heartbreak.

But all-in-all, on a day-to-day basis, I’ve never really had to “worry” throughout my entire life.

And I think if you met me now.

If you saw the confident person I am today.

If you witnessed the carefree, happy-go-lucky attitude I have towards life, (especially in combination with the “ideal” life I was fortunately gifted - the life I’ve just described), then it would be very easy to assume I’ve always been this way.

That my mind has never been plagued with doubts.

That I’ve lived life completely on my own terms.

That my complete lack of concern for what other people do, say or think about me is a simple by-product of ideal circumstance and, in true Maybelline style, maybe I was just born with it.  

But what I want to confess to you today.

The point I want to get across.

And the reason I began writing this email 4 days ago as opposed to relying on my normal routine of walking down to the local Starbuck’s, setting up shop and beating my laptop into submission for 60-90 minutes straight. 

Is that nothing could be further from the truth.

That despite the self-assured 26 year old you might think you know, I in fact spent the first 24-25 or so years of my life in a very different state of mind.

That for the bulk of my life, I was always plagued by one thing more than any other:

I was always a worrier.

Not about the actual “scary” stuff.

I could get on a rollercoaster.

I could go get shot in the face at paintballing.

For fuck’s sake, at that age of 8 I jumped off a mountain in Canada with nothing but a few strands of string and some see-through canvas to break my fall.

But the small stuff?

Chatting to a girl.

The mark I was gonna get on my homework.

What to say to the barber when I went to get a haircut.

Worrying about all the shit which, in reality, didn’t even fucking matter.

That’s what I struggled with the most.

I don’t think most people realised. How would they? I’ve always been outwardly self-assured.

But if there’s anything I’ve learned in the last 12 months or so - the period of time in which I’ve, thankfully, been able to rid myself of my incessant worrying - it’s that there’s an ever-so-pervasive and, in my view, ever-so-wrong, perception that what determines the quality your life is the "big" events.

Your high-school graduation.

Your wedding day.

The birth of your kids.

Don’t get me wrong - these things all matter. They matter a lot.

But when you think about it.

When you actually take a step back and assess how you spend most of your life.

99.99% of it isn’t doing any of these things.

It’s spent doing the trivial shit.

Making your bed. Brushing your teeth. Eating your morning bacon and egg sandwich that’s doused in butter and ketchup. Waiting in line for a coffee. Doing some work. Walking around the shops. Sitting on the tube. Reading a book. Having a shower. Seeing what your mates are up to on Instagram. Filling out forms. Listening to music. Doing the washing up. Sticking on a bit of Netflix with your girlfriend and then slowly lifting her from the couch into bed because she’s fallen asleep on your lap for the third time already that week.

This is the stuff that actually fills most of our lives.

And by extension, our sense of joy in those moments is what primarily determines our enjoyment of life itself.

Improve your enjoyment of the “boring” shit?

You’ll 100x your enjoyment of almost every single day on this Earth.

That’s where the real ROI is.

And you wanna know rub?

The real, crying shame?

So many of us - myself included for the first 25 years of my life - ruin almost all of those “little” moments by being totally obsessed with all the stuff that’s currently “wrong”, projecting worrisome scenarios into the future and stressing about a bunch of shit which, ultimately, doesn’t even fucking matter.

So I want to dedicate this email to the worriers.

The ones that need a break.

The ones that are fed up of struggling.

The ones that want to get out of their own head, say fuck it and finally end the inner turmoil that puts a depressing grey cloud over all the stuff they do on a daily basis.

Because although I’m not a worrier any more (I mean, Christ, I literally make a living dishing out my thoughts onto the internet for any ol’ fucker to read), I do remember, like it was yesterday, how miserable living in a constant state of low-level worry can make your life. 

And you wanna know what’s a whole lot more enjoyable than eating your bacon and egg sandwich that’s doused in butter and ketchup every morning?

It’s eating your bacon and egg sandwich that’s doused in butter and ketchup every morning when you’re not worrying about shit.

So here it is.

Here’s the 3 steps I took, as part of a 26 year saga of searching for an email just like this.

The 3 things that have ACTUALLY helped me to escape a life of worry and start living a life that I can thankfully say I now truly, genuinely enjoy:

1) Accepting why you worry (status)

Maybe I’m unique.

Maybe it’s just me.

But when I think back to all the potential “failures” I used to worry about - what grades I was gonna get at school, whether I’d messed things up with a girl, how much money I made - it was very rarely, if ever, stuff that I, myself was actually worried about.

I wasn’t actually that bothered about my grades.

I was bothered by the lens of imperfection others would see me through if I achieved anything but the pinnacle of academic excellence. 

I never actually cared about whether that girl would message me.

I was worried about having to confess to my friends and family that, yet again, I’d failed to make it work out.  

And when I first journeyed into the big, bad world of employment back in the day, I wasn’t actually worried about how much money I made (I do, 100% mean that btw).

Instead, I was worried about how that money would compare to other people I knew and the judgment they’d pass if it was less than their own paypacket.

With all of this stuff it wasn’t me worrying about the outcome itself.

It was me worrying about the perception of that outcome from the viewpoint of others.

And therein lies the problem.

Because it’s all well and good someone telling you to “stop worrying about what other people think”.

But in my experience, that advice is about as useful as Anne Frank’s drumkit.

Instead what I’ve found, at least from my experience, is that the first step to overcoming these worries, stresses and doubts that plague your mind every day is this:

Acceptance.

Ditching the guilt.

Admitting unashamedly, without reproach, and completely free from judgment, that you’re currently being driven by other people’s image of what your life “should” look like.

And that you’re not “broken” for thinking this way.

That humans are, after all, biologically wired to compete based on status.

That it’s a completely natural part of evolution for you to feel like this.

This might take some time.

It won’t happen overnight (it didn’t for me).

And it certainly won’t be a comfortable experience.

But only then, only once you’ve accepted the reality of the situation, only once you’ve genuinely come to terms with the fact that the true driver behind your worries is your innate, biologically-determined desire for status, will you be ready to ask yourself the next question:

2) What do YOU actually want from life?

I think back to the decisions I made for the first 25 years of my life and it kinda baffles me now.

I went to uni because that's what you were supposed to do.

I got a job straight out of uni because that's what you were supposed to do.

And I would even start seeing girls, not because I really wanted to, or because I was actually ready for a relationship at the time, but because, simply, that’s just what you did.

And in all those 25 years, not once, not on one single occasion did I actually take the time to consider what I really wanted out of life.

Only once I actually sat down and contemplated what a successful life would look like for ME:

Building my own business instead of working a 9-5.

Spending every day doing what I actually enjoy doing: writing.

And eventually (likely after I've spent a few more years getting those last little bits of youthful exuberance out of my system) settling down in a nice, quiet little town somewhere with a wife, a couple kids and big black' Labrador I can go on walks with.

Only then did I actually start to see progress in curing myself of this terrible affliction.

So, I’ll tell you what.

It’s Easter bank holiday this weekend.

Which means you’ve been gifted an extra day of freedom.

And instead of spending that vegging out in front of the TV, scrolling through TikTok’s, or forcing the final Cadbury’s Creme Egg down your gullet in an all-too-accurate re-enactment of one of those “python swallows deer whole” videos you see online.

Take 30 minutes for yourself - maybe an hour.

Grab yourself a pen and notepad.

Stroll down to your favourite coffee shop, lock yourself in your study, fuck it go down to the local park if you have to.

Just go somewhere you know your mind will be able to wander free, uninhibited.

And write down everything you actually want from life.

Not what your friends want.

Not what your parents want.

Not what your pet goldfish wants.

Your life.

The things that you, when you’re 85 years old, lying on your deathbed and, hopefully, surrounded by all the people you love, will be able to look back on as nothing but a bunch of time well spent.

Maybe you want kids?

Maybe you don’t want kids?

Maybe you want to travel the world?

Maybe you couldn’t think of anything worse than spending 12 months of your life living out of a backpack and sharing a hostel room with 7 ratty little 18-year olds that smell like they’ve just come off a 5 day stint at Glastonbury festival.

The thing to realise is this:

What you decide isn’t important.

The fact that it’s you who decides, is.

That it’s your choice.

Yours and yours alone.

Because then you’ve got a goal.

Something to shoot for.

A barometer by which to actually measure your life’s success.

And once this yardstick is in place, other people’s opinions of your actions will suddenly seem to matter a whole lot less.

Which brings me onto the final point of this long, winding, brain-dump of an email:

3) One goal. One small step. Day after day. Without waver.

Here’s the main problem I find with most “how to stop worrying” advice:

It treats worrying like it’s an “on-off” switch.

You’re either a worrier, or you’re not.

But in my experience, nothing could be further from the truth.

Worrying isn’t binary.

It’s a spectrum.

A continuous and unabated flow all the way from the people who are utterly panic-stricken by something as trivial as asking the barista for an extra splash of milk in their morning coffee, to the dudes who will quite happily dish out moonies from their hotel balcony like they’re going out of style.

And the logical implication of this different and, in my view, more correct perspective is this:

Curing yourself from worrying isn't about some “quantum leap”.

Some crazy lifestyle change.

Some huge, awe-inspiring event like the diet of Hollywood films and Disney movies we all grew up on would suggest we need. 

Far from it, in fact.

You simply need to take a bunch of small, incremental, but incredibly consistent steps towards the life YOU want. And you need to do that every single day. 

Baby steps.

Decide you want to start your own business?

Maybe today all you need to do is simply hop onto GoDaddy and secure a domain name you like.

Decide you want to see the world?

Maybe today all you need to do is watch a few YouTube videos to get some initial inspiration for where to head first.

Decide you want kids?

Maybe today all you need to do is simply shave the 6 day scruff that’s growing on your face and get a quick gym session in (if you want kids then you are, more than likely, going to have to meet a girl someday. And girls do, in my experience, prefer it if a guy takes at least some pride in his appearance, lol).

I know none of this advice sounds life-changing.

Maybe you were expecting me to tell you to go face your fears by doing a bungee jump, climbing Mount Everest or jumping out of a plane (which, side note, I have actually done and would thoroughly recommend).

Maybe you were expecting me to share with you the "one secret trick" you’ve been missing that’ll instantly rid you of all your demons and wake up tomorrow without a care in the world, ready to sign up for the fucking Pamplona bull run or immediately head to a bar to chat up every 10/10 in sight.

But, that's not how life works.

In my experience, advice which is advertised as “life-changing” is typically the furthest thing from the stuff which will actually change your life.

Instead, it’s the gradual shift.

The daily, repeatable actions.

The slow, steady progression of purposeful 1% steps towards a clearly defined goal that means everything in the world to YOU.

That’s what actually stops you caring what others think.

Not a fucking 10 day retreat to Ayahuasca.

Now, I’m certainly not “cured” of my worrisome affliction.

I still have my moments - we all do. And that's totally normal.

But I can, honestly, hand-on-heart, say that despite whatever stresses or worries present themselves to me on a daily basis - however big or small - I am always able to deal with them.

To return to the present.

To focus on what matters.

And to quite simply, let them go.

And I credit this entire transformation to the 3 simple steps outlined above which I have routinely applied, day after day, without waver, for the last 12 or so months of my life.

And which I hope, for at least one of you fuckers who made it to the end of this absolute mammoth of an email, will help you to achieve the same.

So that one day.

No matter what’s going on in your life.

No matter what’s going wrong.

No matter what you could be worrying about.

You’ll be able to tune out the noise.

Forget the problems that really aren’t problems at all.

And finally start enjoying - fully, and without any inhibitions - this wonderful thing we all call life.

I hope you have a lovely Easter weekend, guys.

Talk soon,

Harry