Master Grazia’s life skills

Sarah Knight, author of Calm The F**k Down and F**k No!

Turn your anxieties into a logical, rational measurement of probability and set aside the ones that are really unlikely to happen. (I developed this little tool called the prob-o-meter because it measures the probability of your problems. It’s just a scale of 1 to 5: 1 = something highly unlikely to happen, 2 = unlikely,

3 = likely, 4 = highly likely and 5 = inevitable. So, whenever I’m feeling anxious about something that hasn’t happened yet, I stop and think, where does this fall on the prob-o-meter? Because, if it’s a one or a two, I really don’t need to be worrying about it. Or if something’s highly likely to happen, you can start spending that time and energy worrying about it so you are prepared. I call that productive, helpful and effective worrying.

When you’re feeling a panic coming on, give anxiety the finger by doing something hands-on. It can be something complicated or simple, which will help give your brain a rest by just taking it out of the equation and focusing on something that you don’t need it for. You could take up knitting, re-string your guitar or even file your nails.

If your worries keep you from sleeping, think about ‘tonight you’ versus ‘tomorrow you’. If you’re a type-a perfectionist like me and you just want to get things done, you have to move sleep to the top of your to-do list. Tell yourself that your job tonight is to just fall asleep, while your job tomorrow is to get everything done. If you’re so worried about succeeding, or completing or showing up for the thing you’re worrying about, the very first thing that you need to do is get a good night’s sleep.