The Best Moment To Deal With Stress At Work (or in life)
One of the best ways to deal with stress at work or anywhere for that matter, is to chop stresses roots off before they have a chance to grow!
Maybe not like this at work
I thought I had all my bases covered but as you know, life sometimes throws you a curve ball. That morning getting to the truck I loaded it all up, pretty quickly and was a solid hour and a half ahead of normal. I got into the truck and started it and…..nothing! The truck is a diesel truck and it was plugged in all night (so I thought) so it should have fired right up but it didn't. I got my car, got some jumper cables and tried to give the batteries some juice, still didn't work.
As I was doing all of this I kept looking at the clock, I was losing time fast. At one point I really started to get stressed and things started falling over, I fell in the snow, I had to use the restroom, it all seemed to be coming at me at the same time:
When you start to feel like everything is coming at you at once, you start feeling that pressure, you feel your body heat starting to rise, that's the best moment to deal with stress!
Knowing when to walk away:
Have you been at work and you messed up and your boss just got done yelling at you? What is your normal reaction? You get upset thinking of all the ways you would quit and tell them off, but you go back to your work day and it just seems like nothing will go right. You mess up on papers you're working on, you trip over an open file cabinet, you spill coffee on yourself.
What if you worked at a physical job like construction? What if you shot your foot with a nail gun (extreme example)? At the moment when you deal with a situation that has the potential to cause stress, take a small walk, clear your head and breathe deeply! If you go any further without decompressing is when it will turn into chaos! Go somewhere quite, if you can, and take a little time out. Remember when you were younger and the teacher gave you a time out, you might have been one upset kid, but it worked, didn't it?
Sing yourself a song, even if you look crazy:
Don't worry about what other people will think about you if you do what you have to do to avoid anger or stress. Sing yourself a nice, soothing song, do what you have to do to bring your anger level back down to 2.
Use this in work or life:
As you go through life there are bound to be things that will anger you or stress you out, if you deal with them at that specific moment you can eliminate those times where you just feel like taking an all day nap. You're going to win some (I hope a lot) but you're also going to lose some, be prepared. When you lose and you realize it, pick your head up, get yourself together and do what you have to do.
The beauty of life is that we frequently get second chances, it's not too late! You can win this battle, I believe in you, just don't forget that specific moment when things have the potential to go from ok to horrible.
Put this into practice:
So this week in whatever what you do, I want you to put this into action. Take those little time out's before things escalate. I would love to hear about how you did, email me and let me know: Kimanzi@talesofwork.com
How do you deal with stress? Let us know in the comments:
P.S. If you enjoy these post, please sign up for updates through email. All you have to do is put your email address in the blue box on the right. We respect your privacy and will not share your information. If you think these post are starting to suck, you can easily unsubscribe! SIGN UP TODAY!
