Stress…If You Can’t Beat It, Join Forces!
Ask Yourself:
Which parts of your job are stressful?
Which parts of the rest of your life are stressful?
Are you bringing your work stress home?
…Is that having a positive impact on your home life?
Are you bringing your home stress to work?
…Is that having a positive impact on your work life?
The point of this exercise is to recognize when we let stress negatively impact our lives. Once we have identified and named areas where we are bringing stress from one area of our lives to another, and where it NOT having a positive impact, we can move to make changes conducive to improving our whole lives. Sometimes this looks like changing our schedule to allow for naps to improve our overall productivity. Sometimes it does mean recognizing where we could prevent complaining, etc, and focus on being present with our loved ones and creating positive moments rather than bringing negativity in from other parts of your life.
- I am not condoning shoving that shit deep down and forgetting about it, take the time and space you need to process things!! -
Just be aware and conscious of processing on purpose, and being present on purpose at home or at work, or wherever you are – enjoy and dive into the life in front of you right at this moment! For example, don’t let a rude co-worker ruin your date, or your dinner, or whatever you do outside of work. You can absolutely deal with, kindly confront, grab a manager to talk through the rude coworker situation when you are back at work…but why let it fester and affect your life?
Similarly, you may be having a rough time with a friend or family member that makes it hard to focus at work. Reclaim control over your mind, and focus your energy and attention in the present moment at work – one of the best tricks I’ve found for this is to very intentionally relate the thing I’m doing to my personal purpose and values. By doing this, I frame that I am doing what I am doing for a good reason, so I want to be my best at it…which means letting go of the internal drama around my personal life until I am outside of work and in an environment conducive to processing through that situation or frustration, either with the person involved, or with a counselor, or with a friend whose intent is to help you to process and/or move forward.
Transforming stress into positive energy
This TED talk examines and answers this question - how to make stress your friend!
https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend
We find our lives more enjoyable when chasing meaning instead of avoiding discomfort.
What is the point of avoiding discomfort? To enjoy life more, right? So this approach is counter-intuitive. It makes sense to us as a truism that meaning>less discomfort, and yet can be hard to grasp it’s significance well enough to apply it, because it seem so obvious.
This is where it is helpful to remind ourselves of the fact that our brain ALSO believes avoiding discomfort will increase life enjoyment. Because both seem good, we need to be on the lookout for opportunities to CHOOSE our path to enjoyment. Both are believable, one is much more effective (“and harder and scarier” says our protector brain).
To respond to our protector brain and seize control of enjoying our lives we must continually remind ourselves of our dreams that create meaning for our lives, and our capability to take on challenges.
We need to FEED our inner self and our dreams by doing the following:
Connecting with our inner values, and our inner dreams helps motivate us to take steps toward our dreams.
We also find motivation and drive through the practice of goal setting, and by learning new things.
Intentionally designing our lives to align with our inner values and our goals also fuels our dreams.
In order to cultivate the energy required to chase our dreams and live in alignment with our inner selves, we must ensure we take care of ourselves and put our own damn oxygen mask on first!
Get enough sleep
Eat enough nutrients
Exercise regularly
Truly connect with other human beings in our lives
Those are the non negotiables…what are the things you need to do to fill your tank?