4. I can go down to the office as usual on Monday morning. IfI do， there is a chance that the Japanese admiral may be so busythat he will not think of what I did. Even if he does think of it，he may have cooled off and may not bother me. If this happens，I am all right. Even if he does bother me， I’ll still have a chanceto try to explain to him. So， going down to the office as usual onMonday morning， and acting as if nothing had gone wrong givesme two chances to escape the Bridge-house.
As soon as I thought it all out and decided to accept the fourthplan—to go down to the office as usual on Monday morning—Ifelt immensely relieved.
When I entered the office the next morning， the Japaneseadmiral sat there with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Heglared at me as he always did； and said nothing. Six weeks later—thank God—he went back to Tokyo and my worries were ended.
As I have already said， I probably saved my life by sittingdown that Sunday afternoon and writing out all the various stepsI could take and then writing down the probable consequences ofeach step and calmly coming to a decision. If I hadn’t done that，I might have floundered and hesitated and done the wrong thingon the spur of the moment. If I hadn’t thought out my problemand come to a decision， I would have been frantic with worry allSunday afternoon. I wouldn’t have slept that night. I would havegone down to the office Monday morning with a harassed andworried look； and that alone might have aroused the suspicion ofthe Japanese admiral and spurred him to act.
“Experience has proved to me， time after time， the enormousvalue of arriving at a decision. It is the failure to arrive at a fixedpurpose， the inability to stop going round and round in maddeningcircles， that drives men to nervous breakdowns and living hells.
I find that fifty per cent of my worries vanishes once I arriveat a clear， definite decision； and another forty per cent usuallyvanishes once I start to carry out that decision.
So I banish about ninety per cent of my worries by takingthese four steps：
“1. Writing down precisely what I am worrying about.
“2. Writing down what I can do about it.
“3. Deciding what to do.
“4. Starting immediately to carry out that decision.”
Galen Litchfield today is one of the most important Americanbusiness men in Asia； and he confesses to me that he owes a large part of his success to this method of analysing worry and meetingit head-on.
William James said this： “When once a decision is reachedand execution is the order of the day， dismiss absolutely allresponsibility and care about the outcome.” In this case， WilliamJames undoubtedly used the word “care” as a synonym for“anxiety”.） He meant—once you have made a careful decisionbased on facts， go into action. Don’t stop to reconsider. Don’tbegin to hesitate worry and retrace your steps. Don’t lose yourselfin self-doubting which begets other doubts. Don’t keep lookingback over your shoulder.
I once asked Waite Phillips， one of Oklahoma’s most prominentoil men， how he carried out decisions. He replied： “I find thatto keep thinking about our problems beyond a certain point isbound to create confusion and worry. There comes a time whenany more investigation and thinking are harmful. There comes atime when we must decide and act and never look back.”
Why don’t you employ Galen Litchfield’s technique to one ofyour worries right now？
Here is：
Question No. 1—What am I worrying about？ （Please pencil theanswer to that question in the space below.）
Question No. 2—What can I do about it？ （Please write youranswer to that question in the space below.）
Question No. 3—Here is what I am going to do about it.
Question No. 4—When am I going to start doing it？