If you’d like to get a Monday Morning message from me with 3 strategies to prime you for a killer week, then sign up for my free Monday Morning 3 Point Primer.
5 Steps to make Yourself Stress Proof
Stress is a funny thing, it comes about when you’re overwhelmed, or not prepared. The interesting part is that the stress takes away your ability to focus, work effectively, and be a strong leader, which then leads to a stronger sense of being overwhelmed. That in turn leads to more stress, which leads to more problems…it’s a negative spiral. The way that each person handles stress is different, and each person has varying degrees of productivity while under stress. Some strive under pressure, where as others collapse.
So what does stress solve? When you get stressed, how does it HELP? How does your team see you? How does it effect your work?
It’s my personal opinion that stress is actually a defense mechanism. When a person shows stress, they want sympathy, they’re too stubborn to ask for help, or they want people to see how much they’re trying. Let’s look a little deeper into those 3 things…
1. Sympathy – No one cares why you’re stressed and thats because as a majority, humanity is pretty self centered. I’m not trying to be cold, it’s just people usually look out for #1, themselves. So instead of garnering sympathy, you really are just feigning weakness as a strength.
2. Stubborn – If you show stress as a way of asking for help, then I sure hope you hired a team of psychics. When your leader sees you stressed out, and then has to figure out why, and then figure out a solution, it’s time consuming and counterproductive. Instead, if you put your stubbornness aside, and ASK FOR HELP, we sure would could get to our goal a lot quicker.
3. Engaged – Being stressed to show that you care does work to some degree. If your in a hard spot, and your stressed, it does prove that you at least care about it. Beyond that, it doesn’t really help YOU.
So, if you get stressed it’s not going to do much, besides show people that you can’t handle the situation. One of the worst things a leader can do is have the followers think they can’t handle a situation. That’s when they stop following, and start looking elsewhere for a person that can lead them.
Stress Proof!! – I challenge you to become stress proof. If you do an action that has no positive result, why continue? That’s how stress works, it starts a downward spiral, so not only does it not have a positive effect, it has a NEGATIVE effect! Why allow yourself, to do that TO YOURSELF? Becoming stress proof isn’t easy, but it sure is effective.
Here’s how to become stress proof in 5 simple steps:
1. When you feel stress, remove yourself from the situation momentarily. Walk around the corner and take a deep breath. When you’ve calmed down, head back in and make a some adjustments to calm the situation down, or jump straight to #2.
2. Get it off your mind, and on to paper. The longer the problem lives only inside your head, the wilder your imagination will run. When you can get it out and on to paper, a strange calming phenomenon takes place. It doesn’t matter where you write it, just get it out of your brain!
3. Turn your writing into an action list. Look for opportunity to simplify the issue into 3-5 action steps you can take right now to get the issue towards resolution.
4. If you need to, make a call to someone. If it’s for guidance, or just to vent, you need to do whatever is necessary to get your head straight.
5. Last, enroll others to help you solve this problem. Use your action list to assemble a team using each person’s strengths to your advantage
When you’re stressed, it just means there is a problem that needs solving. With those 5 steps, you just went from stressed and ineffective to having a plan for success and earning respect from your team. They will begin to look up to you, and admire you for your strength and calmness under fire. Not only will you have more piece of mind, and better quality of life, but you’ll have fewer problems!
-NJ
If you’d like to get a Monday Morning message from me with 3 strategies to prime you for a killer week, then sign up for my free Monday Morning 3 Point Primer.