3 Stress Relievers for When You Feel Pressured

Too much to do; too little time: There are so many things that can cause you to feel an uncomfortable sense of pressure: project deadlines, performance demands, sudden unexpected responsibilities, as well as your important personal responsibilities – a parent’s unexpected decline in health, a child not doing well in school. Add to these the pressures you may be placing on yourself because you want to excel at everything you do and triple this if you are a perfectionist!

Pressure can have a negative effect on your effectiveness and well being: Notice your internal state when the pressure is on. Is there a negative effect on your well being? Are you anxious, worried? Are you having a less than desired effect on your performance at work and your life in general? Are you falling behind, losing sleep? If so, it’s time to elevate your approach to one that is more effective. Here are some steps to doing so… 

1. Approach makes all the difference: You want to move yourself from feeling buried by all you have to do to being on top of all you have to do. How you do that begins with providing yourself with a comprehensive overview of all that is contributing to the pressure you are feeling. Not unlike emptying a messy drawer to neatly reorganize its contents, the process of gaining a comprehensive overview is a first step in getting on top of it all. Different from writing a to-do list, here you are grasping and observing the urgent tasks currently competing for your time and attention. 

2. Getting to the heart of the matter: What can someone else do? What can wait? What can’t? Now you’ve stabilized your thoughts and gotten them to stand still on the page. From there you can choose what your true priorities are: what can wait, what can’t, what can someone else do? Then it’s on to a critical step – insuring your success with the one that troubles you the most. 

3. Defining the best possible outcome: Focusing on the hardest task or project you’re dealing with, ask yourself: what is the best possible outcome for this project? Write that down. Now, as if you have already achieved this outcome, write down the steps you took that got you there. Then, looking at your schedule, block off the time slots you will dedicate to taking those steps.

Getting to the finish line in a better way: The continual, unrelenting volume of things crowding your to-do lists can leave you feeling overwhelmed.  It’s important to remember that all things are truly accomplished one step at a time. Clarifying the most important steps to take and organizing your time will greatly increase your effectiveness and your well being. You can transform pressure into an effective, organized strategy to get yourself to the finish line – every time.  You can transform the negative state of feeling pressure into a positive state in which you are truly able to be more effective on your own behalf.

 

 

 

Jane Firth, M.Sc., career coach and founder and President of Firth Leadership Partners