PDF Summary:How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, by Dale Carnegie

In this bestselling classic, Dale Carnegie—author of How to Win Friends and Influence People—offers timeless advice and practical methods for cultivating a happier, more worry-free mindset.

This guide explains the cause of worry and why it’s important to take control of it, and walks you through Carnegie’s methods for eliminating it from your life. You’ll come away knowing how to overcome worry by focusing on the present, come up with constructive solutions to your problems, and prevent criticism, work, or finances from triggering worry.

We’ll also expand on his suggestions with psychological research, additional insights, and practical advice from other self-help practitioners.

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Focus constructively: Consider how to mitigate, improve, or learn from your concerns. Carnegie argues that reacting emotionally to issues magnifies their importance—thus, exacerbating your worry. On the other hand, thinking objectively about what you can do to improve or learn from these issues calms down your negative emotions and prevents unimportant matters from escalating into large problems. This process trains you to focus on what you can control to better your circumstances—providing opportunities to make the best out of any situation.

(Shortform note: Stephen Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) suggests a practical way to think objectively and make the best out of your circumstances. When faced with a problem, think about what steps you can personally take toward solving it. This helps you more easily distinguish between concerns beyond your control (like your kids getting sick) and issues you can improve or solve (like organizing to work from home so you can take care of them.)

Accept the past: Forgive and forget unwanted past experiences. Carnegie argues that ruminating on the past is useless. No amount of worrying changes what you or others have said or done in the past. However, these worries clutter your mind and contribute to feelings of stress in your present. Accepting that everyone makes mistakes—you included—helps you let go of the past and release unnecessary tension. This helps you focus productively on what you can do now to better your circumstances and make the best out of your present.

(Shortform note: Covey offers a complementary way to move forward from concerns about the past: Be accountable for your regrets. Instead of dwelling on unwanted experiences, reflect on how you can change to avoid repeating them. Making a conscious attempt to understand the contributing factors to your regretful experiences illuminates how to avoid repeat scenarios: If your regret relates to your actions, alter your behavior. If it relates to other people’s actions, alter the way you communicate with others.)

Set limits: Determine how much time and energy you’re willing to spend worrying about habitual issues by weighing up how much you care about them. Carnegie suggests that this process forces you to consider how much time these small matters are really worth and prevents you from wasting unnecessary energy on habitual worries and frustrations.

(Shortform note: Once you’ve determined how much time and energy a worry deserves, psychologists recommend sticking to your limit by scheduling a time for it and setting a timer. As long as the timer’s running, feel free to worry to your heart’s content. But, as soon as the timer goes off, redirect your focus to something more productive.)

Approach #2: Adopt New Habits to Maintain a Positive Attitude

We’ve just discussed how to positively approach day-to-day issues in a way that alleviates worry. In this approach, Carnegie broadens the scope and suggests practical ways to focus your attention on maintaining a generally positive attitude. The more positive your attitude is, the easier it is to deal with irritations and concerns without feeling worried. He suggests four ways to maintain a positive attitude:

Be yourself: Feel comfortable with who you are. According to Carnegie, striving to be someone different by imitating others makes you feel anxious and unhappy. He suggests that you can resolve this tension by developing and expressing the skills, passions, and interests that make you who you are.

(Shortform note: Psychologists confirm that authenticity (the ability to express who you really are) is essential to your overall sense of well-being. Studies reveal that authentic people are generally happier than inauthentic people because they experience more positive emotions, have higher self-esteem, enjoy better relationships, feel more satisfied, and have lower stress levels.)

Be too busy to worry: Occupy your mind with productive and positive thoughts by keeping yourself mentally and physically busy. Carnegie claims that it’s impossible to think of more than one thing at a time. Therefore, it’s impossible for negative (pessimistic) thoughts to intrude on your mind if it’s already occupied with positive (optimistic) thoughts.

(Shortform note: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Flow) clarifies how keeping productive inhibits negative or worrisome thoughts. The more you direct your attention on a task, the more absorbed you feel in what you’re doing. Beyond focusing your mind on positive thoughts, as Carnegie suggests, this sense of absorption connects you to the present moment. This makes it difficult for your mind to wander and get distracted by thoughts about the past or future—where, as we’ve seen, worry and anxiety live.)

Practice kindness: Commit to doing at least one good deed every day. Carnegie explains that thinking of ways to benefit others offers two advantages. First, it distracts you from thinking about yourself and your worries. Second, acknowledging your positive impact on others makes you feel good about yourself.

(Shortform note: Scientific research confirms that practicing kindness does make you feel good about yourself. When you give (knowledge, assistance, time, or money) with the intention of helping others, you activate the same parts of your brain that are stimulated by pleasurable activities such as eating good food or having great sex.)

Have faith: Develop your spiritual connection to a higher power by engaging in quiet reflection and prayer. According to Carnegie, belief in a higher power coupled with regular contemplation and prayer alleviates worry because it makes you feel supported. It provides an outlet to share your fears and concerns and helps you articulate and understand the cause of your worries. This cathartic process calms down anxiety and makes worries feel more manageable—making it easier to find solutions to resolve your worries and maintain a positive attitude.

(Shortform note: Research studies confirm that prayer calms your nervous system and makes you less reactive to negative emotions. Like Carnegie claims, it fosters a sense of connection (with a higher power, the environment, and other people), allows you to feel emotionally supported, and encourages you to let go of your worries for a time. If the idea of praying to a higher power makes you feel uncomfortable, researchers recommend imagining yourself having a heart-to-heart conversation with someone you trust. This will allow you to benefit from the positive effects of prayer without giving your mind something to resist.)

Positivity Takes Practice

The process to cultivate a positive attitude may not be as easy as Carnegie makes out—the approaches discussed in this chapter, while useful, skim over the need for some deeper reflection.

Changing your mindset is challenging because your thoughts and your attitude reinforce one another to create an internal feedback loop that’s difficult to break out of: Your thoughts determine your attitude (dwelling on worries makes you feel pessimistic) and your attitude determines your thoughts (you feel pessimistic so you dwell on your worries).

Research reveals that making an effort to become more aware of your thoughts allows you to disentangle yourself from this feedback loop. Instead of feeling as if you’re stuck within an uncontrollable cycle of worries, your awareness allows you to change your thoughts objectively. Pairing this conscious reflection with Carnegie’s methods can greatly improve your success in cultivating a more positive attitude.

Part 4: Manage Three Common Worry Triggers—Criticism, Work, and Finances

We’ve just discussed how to cultivate a positive attitude and alleviate general worries and concerns. An added benefit of adopting a worry-free attitude is that it frees up mental energy to address habitual causes of stress and anxiety that may crop up in your life. Carnegie identifies three habitual worry triggers—criticism, work, and finances. In this final part of the guide, we’ll suggest ways to manage and neutralize anxieties triggered by each of these three areas.

Manage Worry About Criticism

Most people, when criticized, react negatively—becoming angry and defensive or worried about what others think of them. Carnegie argues that criticism has the potential to teach valuable lessons and reacting negatively prevents you from learning them. Learning to control your reactions to criticism prevents negative emotions from spiraling out of control and helps you benefit from what it has to teach you.

(Shortform note: The authors of Thanks for the Feedback clarify why managing your response to criticism is important. Your ability to succeed, both personally and professionally, depends in large part on your ability to seek, understand, and incorporate feedback into your life. Individuals who control their negative response to feedback enjoy many benefits: They have happier relationships, find it easier to adapt to their circumstances, and feel more satisfied at work.)

He suggests three ways to control your negative reactions, create less stress, and benefit from criticism:

Critique yourself: Carnegie recommends regularly examining and criticizing yourself to build awareness of areas to improve. This helps you learn from your mistakes privately instead of publicly and prepares you to receive criticism from others more constructively.

(Shortform note: Social psychologists offer some practical advice on critiquing yourself constructively: Don’t focus on finding fault with who you are—this makes you feel powerless to change your behavior and more sensitive to criticism. For example, believing that you’ll never be good at something because you’re not intelligent. Instead, criticize specific, changeable behaviors. Focusing on modifiable behaviors directs you to specific actions you can take to improve both yourself and your circumstances—and it helps you to respond more rationally to criticism. For example, realizing that you’re not good at something because you haven’t learned the basics.)

Consider the critic’s intention: Carnegie suggests considering the intention behind the criticism—is it to help or berate you? If the intention is to help you, accept it as legitimate and ask yourself what you can learn from it. If it’s to berate you, remember that people often dish out unfair criticism in an attempt to feel more powerful and important. Reframe this sort of unjustified criticism as a compliment because you’re clearly doing something that’s worth their attention.

(Shortform note: Psychologists suggest a way to judge, learn from, and resolve your feelings about any criticism you receive. Split a sheet of paper into four columns. In the first column, write down the criticism word for word without imposing your interpretation over it. In the second column, write down everything that upsets you about the feedback. In the third column, write down why the critic might be right—consider her perspective and what you can learn from it. Finally, in the fourth column, write down what you’ll do next—you might apply the feedback, ask for clarification on what you can improve, or decide that the criticism’s not worth getting upset over and let it go.)

React by doing what feels right to you: While it’s tempting to please critics in an attempt to avoid future criticism, Carnegie argues that it’s a waste of time. No matter what you do, someone will find a reason to criticize you. He suggests basing your decisions and actions on what’s right for you. Acting according to your own judgment increases self-confidence and decreases the tendency to worry about other people’s opinions.

(Shortform note: Another way to think about this is to consider what’s motivating you. Some experts believe that all behavior is driven by the need to fulfill one of two motivation types: intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation comes from your internal self: You engage in an activity because it makes you happy (for example, you blog about topics that interest you regardless of whether or not your content attracts subscribers). Extrinsic motivation comes from your environment: You engage in an activity because you receive an external reward for doing it and it’s what others want from you (for example, you blog about topics that don’t interest you because you’re afraid your subscribers will lose interest).)

Manage Worry About Work

It’s important to get a handle on work-related worries because you spend so much of your time and energy at work. When work-related worries build up, they create stress that impacts your ability to enjoy all aspects of your life. Carnegie suggests two methods to reduce your worries about work and boost your overall happiness.

(Shortform note: Career experts clarify how work-related worries impact your ability to enjoy other aspects of your life. First, as we’ve previously discussed, stress creates a number of health problems that impact your ability to relax and feel happy. Additionally, the stress you feel at work bleeds over into your personal life—it undermines your confidence, lowers your motivation, impacts your ability to relate to others, and damages your sex life. All of these effects prove that it’s worth getting a handle on work-related stress if you want to experience more happiness and satisfaction in your life.)

Method #1: Make Work More Enjoyable

Boring work is a significant source of negative emotions such as resentment, frustration, and worry. On the other hand, enjoyable work significantly improves your health and overall happiness. It also gives you a competitive edge because you willingly spend time mastering skills that you enjoy—leading to further advantageous career opportunities.

(Shortform note: According to research in the area of positive psychology, Carnegie’s advice to seek out enjoyable work also improves your chances of achieving career success. You’re more likely to feel motivated and experience increased happiness and satisfaction when you pursue career goals that genuinely interest you. This positive mental state allows you to access the best parts of yourself—your unique strengths and talents—and apply them to successfully achieve your goals.)

Even if you don’t particularly like your job, you can consciously make it more enjoyable—he suggests three ways to achieve this.

Add interest and challenge to your work: Set goals for yourself or take on extra, more interesting projects alongside your regular work. These small changes often lead to genuine enjoyment that makes you want to work. As a result, your productivity increases and gets noticed by employers—creating opportunities for more interesting promotions.

(Shortform note: Gretchen Rubin (The Happiness Project) clarifies how adding interest and challenge to your work leads to enjoyment. First, tackling additional tasks requires extra mental effort that engages your mind. Recall: Mental engagement prevents negative thoughts and worries from intruding on your thoughts. Second, you’re more likely to feel engaged in a task that you’re genuinely interested in. Third, successfully tackling each task increases feelings of self-satisfaction and pride. This combination of engagement, satisfaction, and pride increases your enjoyment at work and your overall happiness.)

Reflect on how lucky you are: Remember that you’re lucky to have a job and the income it provides. Reframing your thoughts about work so that they’re as positive as possible boosts self-confidence and motivation and prepares you to approach obstacles with a positive attitude.

(Shortform note: Interestingly, research in neuroscience and positive psychology shows that Carnegie’s method of positively reframing your thoughts about work will heighten your feelings of satisfaction in all areas of your life. According to Shawn Achor (The Happiness Advantage), positive thoughts train your brain to find opportunities in adversity and to easily overcome challenges and setbacks. This creates positive momentum in your life and fuels further opportunities to feel happy and satisfied.)

Pursue enjoyable work: According to Carnegie, the ideal way to combat work worries is to work in a job you genuinely enjoy. You can change your line of work at any time and make use of your transferable skills. There’s no excuse to feel stuck in a single career because there are many fields you can succeed in if you apply yourself.

(Shortform note: The authors of Designing Your Life suggest two ways to find enjoyable work and ease your transition to a new career: First, conduct informational interviews to gain insider information about the career or company you’re interested in. Second, arrange work experience—such as volunteer work or an internship—to get a visceral feel for the job role or company. Both methods provide opportunities to expand your professional network, and they allow you to test out the pros and cons of a new career without having to quit your current job.)

Method #2: Establish Constructive Work Habits

Even when you enjoy your work, poor organization and lack of rest can still trigger unnecessary worry. In this method, Carnegie suggests three practical ways to reduce daily work-related stress.

Rest and relax: Take regular moments of rest before you’re tired to prevent fatigue, increase efficiency, promote constructive thinking, and make yourself less susceptible to worry. Accomplish this by scheduling frequent breaks into your day. Additionally, reduce physical tension by regularly checking in with your body to identify tight or stiff muscles. Then consciously relax those muscles.

(Shortform note: Research into ultradian rhythms clarifies how taking frequent breaks improves your ability to focus constructively. When your mind’s at work, your brain and body burn sources of energy such as oxygen and glucose. This process creates metabolic waste that accumulates in your system and leads to feelings of fatigue, stress, and irritability. These feelings impede your ability to focus and make you susceptible to worrisome thoughts. Taking 20-minute breaks every 90 minutes allows your body to flush this waste out of your system, restore your energy sources, and revive your ability to direct your focus.)

Reduce physical and mental clutter: Remove everything from your desk, except for whatever needs your immediate attention. This eliminates distracting, worrying reminders of everything you need to get done and lets you focus on one problem at a time.

(Shortform note: James Clear (Atomic Habits) clarifies how reducing clutter aids your focus. He argues that visual cues in your environment shape your focus and instigate action by tricking your brain into thinking that it’s convenient to act on them. For example, email pop-ups trigger you to automatically check emails. Without them, opening emails requires a conscious decision. Likewise, clearing your desk of all distractions and leaving just one project on your desk makes it convenient to focus your full attention on that single task—removing the need to make a conscious decision to do it.)

Likewise, avoid cluttering your mind: Deal with issues, questions, and problems as soon as they come up. If you can’t attend to them immediately, schedule a specific time to deal with them so that you’re not tempted to mull over them all day.

(Shortform note: Pasricha (The Happiness Equation) offers an interesting way to expand upon Carnegie’s method: Eliminate unnecessary decisions. He argues that you make hundreds of trivial decisions each day that don’t make you feel happier or help you achieve your goals. Instead, they contribute to feelings of stress and overwhelm because they waste your time and deplete your energy. To eliminate these trivial decisions, first track all of the decisions you make in a day and identify the ones that don’t impact your happiness or goals. Then, consider how to remove them. For example, instead of wasting time deciding how to sign off every email, automate the task by creating a default email signature.)

Prioritize and delegate tasks: Plan ahead and schedule each day to accomplish obligations in order of their importance. Knowing your priorities allows you to focus energy on what needs to get done and reduces worries caused by inefficient action. Delegate anything that doesn’t require your personal attention. Entrusting others to help reduces your workload and gives you less to worry about.

How to Prioritize Tasks

Like Carnegie, Brian Tracy (Eat That Frog!) recommends that you prioritize tasks to avoid unnecessary stress. He suggests a practical way to determine which tasks are important and which ones don’t require your attention: Prioritize your to-do list using the ABCDE labeling method. List all of your tasks and label each as follows:

A—must do: Not doing these critical tasks will create serious negative consequences. For example, meeting an essential deadline.

B—should do: Not doing these necessary tasks may create negative consequences. For example, returning a non-critical call.

C—would be nice to do: These tasks don’t impact your goals and don’t matter. For example, attending general meetings with no specific agenda.

D—to delegate: These tasks don’t need your personal input. For example, responding to general inquiries that an assistant can handle.

E—to eliminate: These tasks are unnecessary distractions. For example, checking emails every fifteen minutes.

Manage Worry About Finances

Money is an essential need so it’s no surprise that it triggers feelings of worry. It’s easy to assume that lack of money creates worry and that having more money resolves your concerns. Carnegie argues that lack of money isn’t to blame for your worries. Rather, poor financial management, overspending, and focusing on what you don’t have triggers worry. If you don’t rectify these causes, your finances will always trigger worry, no matter how much you have. He suggests two methods to improve your attitude toward what you have, keep your finances under control, and ease your financial worries: control your expenses and create financial security.

(Shortform note: Ramit Sethi (I Will Teach You to Be Rich) also argues that good financial management resolves common concerns about money, but concedes that it can be challenging to get a handle on your spending. According to him, there’s a psychological reason underlying the tendency to mismanage money: decision paralysis. You become too overwhelmed to make decisions about your finances when you’re presented with multiple options and opinions about the best way to move forward. To move past this, he recommends that you switch your focus from information-gathering and start taking small proactive steps—such as those we’ll explore in this section—to manage your money more effectively.)

Method #1: Control Your Expenses

Carnegie suggests three ways to build awareness of where your money goes, encourage conscious spending habits, and create a sense of security and control to alleviate worries about your expenses.

1) Write down everything you spend your money on for at least one month and then tailor a budget suited to your specific needs.

2) Consider the value of intended purchases in terms of how necessary they are to your well-being—will these things make you happy or create unnecessary debt and worry? Then, research your intended purchases to ensure you get good value for your money.

(Shortform note: Sethi (I Will Teach You to Be Rich) adds to this advice by recommending that you use the Mint app to track your spending and the You Need a Budget app to control your expenses. Additionally, he suggests that you focus on spending mindfully: Split your expenses into four areas (fixed costs, investments, savings, and guilt-free spending), decide in advance how much you want to spend in each area, then allocate a portion of your income to each. He argues that this process allows you to spend a portion of your income in any way you wish, even if that includes unnecessary expenses. While this goes against common financial advice, you’re more likely to stick to a budget if you don’t feel like you’re constantly depriving yourself.)

3) Apply for loans only if you can afford to stay up to date with your repayments and maintain a good credit history.

(Shortform note: David Bach (The Automatic Millionaire) offers additional advice on reducing stress around loans: Accelerate your repayments. Paying more than the minimum required amount each month cuts the length of time you’re in debt and reduces the total amount of interest you pay.)

Method #2: Create Financial Security

Carnegie suggests three ways to protect and build your income to create peace of mind about your financial future.

1) Allocate extra income to savings accounts to create financial security and prevent unintentional overspending.

(Shortform note: Bach (The Automatic Millionaire) adds to this advice by suggesting that you arrange to automatically save at least 10% of your gross (before tax) income before you have a chance to spend it. He claims that you’ll quickly get used to living without this money so won’t feel tempted to spend it—and you’ll effortlessly build your financial security.)

2) Safeguard against financial misfortunes by arranging insurance to cover you in unexpected events.

(Shortform note: Scott Pape (The Barefoot Investor) provides practical advice on what types of things you should insure: If losing something doesn’t affect your financial security, don’t insure it. For example, if your tablet breaks, you’ll probably be able to replace it without putting yourself at a financial disadvantage. On the other hand, if losing something risks your financial security, you should insure it. For example, if your work computer gets stolen, you’ll lose your ability to work until you purchase a replacement—both factors are likely to put you out of pocket.)

3) Increase your financial security by earning additional income. Consider how to turn your skills and knowledge into a profitable business that fits into your current schedule.

(Shortform note: Carnegie doesn’t elaborate on how to turn your skills and knowledge into a profitable business. There are a few practical steps you can take to start earning money on the side: First, identify what you're good at and enjoy doing. Next, identify profitable opportunities in high-growth areas that you’re interested in. Finally, explore ways that you can use your talents to add value to these areas. For example, if you’re good at organizing and you enjoy looking at healthy recipes, there are multiple businesses you can create from this combination, such as a meal-planning service for people who want to lose weight or are on special diets.)