Any growth or progress requires stress. Change, by its nature is stressful. A life of no stress may be possible, but results in lethargy, boredom and eventual decline.
Ask anyone who has accomplished something of note and they will tell you stress was involved. This holds true for progress and accomplishments of any kind – physical, mental, social, creative, or spiritual.
There are two factors in managing stress so that you stay on the healthy side of stress, and not on the suck-the-life-out-of-you side. One is external; the other internal.
The external side requires that we make good choices about the stress we introduce into our life. We avoid taking on too much or taking on things that far exceed our current capabilities. That is why I’ll not be taking a course in advanced math anytime soon.
While we can’t always control our stressors (we do get sick, lose our jobs, have someone close to us die and other calamities) – in my case 80% of my high stress situations are self-induced. I know I have a propensity to say yes too often, to agree to impossible deadlines, to try something just to see if I can.
Perhaps that is why I’ve gotten pretty good at the internal ways to deal with stress. These tactics work for healthy stress, unhealthy stress, self-induced stress and totally unexpected stress.
Here’s what works for me:
- Breathing deeply
- Finding ways to calm my mind
- Taking time to prioritize and plan
- Figuring out the one next best step
- Taking that one next best step (or just doing something positive)
- Taking care of myself, physically and spiritually
- Asking for help
- Getting out in nature
- Writing out all my concerns in one wild burst
What works for you?
