The time is nigh. By that, I mean the holidays, visits from relatives, gift give, and getting, putting together meals, and all the related STRESS that comes with these days. I have been hearing lately woes of job related stress, never having enough hours in the day to do all that needs to be done. It may seem that there’s nothing you can do about your stress, but you have a lot more control than you might think. In fact, the simple realization that you’re in control of your life is the foundation of stress management.
Managing stress is all about taking charge: of your thoughts, emotions, schedule, environment. The ultimate goal is a balanced life. The thought of balancing your life may be stressful to you. But you need to start! Stress management starts with identifying the sources of stress in your life. And this isn’t always easy to do. How do you, as an individual, explain stress. Is stress temporary, is it an integral part of your life, do you blame stress on other people??? Until you accept responsibility for the role you play in creating or maintaining it, your stress level will remain outside of your control.
Think about ways you currently manage and cope with stress in your life. Are your coping strategies healthy or unhealthy? Unfortunately many people cope with stress in ways that compound the problem, such as: smoking, drinking, overeating or undereating, withdrawing from people, drugs, sleeping too much, lashing out, filling every minute of the day to avoid facing problems. If any of these coping mechanisms applies to you, it’s time to change to healthier ones.
I talk about stress because I don’t want you to waste your time or money when you come to train and all you do is complain or worse not come at all because you feel stressed.