037- The Importance of Dealing With Stress In A Strategic Way EPISODE UNDER REVIEW
When you have stress in your life, it can be daunting to manage it. However, by maintaining a growth-oriented mindset, you learn new ways of thinking and perceiving – and in the end, you learn new strategies. I want you to recognize these 3 key things: We’re not perfect – nobody!
Learning new strategies to effectively manage stress isn’t easy. You really need can stand above your problems, otherwise the stress can crush you! By maintaining a growth-oriented mindset, you learn new ways of thinking and perceiving. In the end, you learn new strategies to dealing with your stress.
Read Show Notes:
3 key things to remember to manage stress in a strategic way:
- We’re not perfect – nobody!
- Personal growth and development is a universal human need that is obtained in different ways. Some grow through hobbies, some through our work or studies, and others grow through personal relationships.
- People are constantly changing and evolving.
In order to really manage your stress in a strategic way, I suggest you try to concentrate on the point I made in Key #3, that we are constantly changing and evolving.
Life changes and evolves
The sun’s rotation to the earth is constantly changing, which means the tide is changing, and the seasons are changing, and the colours of the leaves on the trees are changing. The amount of light we get daily is changing and it affects our mood and how we can handle personal stress. All of these points are to remind you to be gentle on yourself if you’re struggling to reach your potential or manage your stress strategically.
What I see in my practice is people often want help in stress-management, and they want powerful strategies to becoming healthier, but they’re too busy to stop and take a breath.
Life becomes too chaotic and they feel guilty for taking a day off work. Then you become even more stressed-out as a result. By managing some of the deeper nuances of life’s continuous ebb and flow, you can manage your stress. That’s the essence of coaching, and why you’re reading this blog.
But in order for coaches & leadership trainers to do their jobs with precision, they need to learn strategies so their customers can get help managing this constant state of change.
The Strategy
A strategy is an innovative approach or a tactic to managing a particular objective or outcome, ie. managing stress more effectively.
A strategy is relevant to the strategist’s assumptions and intentions. A strategy can change depending upon the person using it, and it varies within an organization. Churches will use different stress management strategies, then the counsellor next door, vs the psychiatrist or a peak performance/mindfulness coach like myself.
In our Pro-Mind Masterclass, I discuss how important a strategy is to managing emotional pain and stress. You can sign-up to our new stress-management training when we run our next session. But the obstacle that most people have is they’re getting outdated advice and outdated strategies on what works to banish your stress.
Now remember I said earlier that a strategy is relevant to the strategist assumptions and intentions? Yes!!!!
This is highly relevant to your success in achieving your desired outcome, and not getting stuck in the trap of “outdated advice”, coming from an old and outdated point of view. You might also be faced with fear of trying to new ideas. We have a 3-part podcast series on this here.
Burnout should never be a given based on what you do. What I hear often is “Oh you were a nurse…alot of burnout huh?”. Yes, there is a lot of burnout in the industry. At the same time, there are health professionals who take the necessary measures to learn about themselves to avoid the stress and stay out of that “zone”.
If you want to grow and be a different person, and manage your stress productively, it’s critically important to learn strategies based on this mindset. Our hospital-wide wellness program, The Pro-Mind Experience is all about. Inside of the 6 Module digital program, we take nurses through many different strategies to help you grow in the most effective way possible, in a step-by-step way. The concepts you learn follow you for a lifetime, and you grow as a result.
One common issue I see in the field of stress management, and public relations/human resource, is they want to give their employees access to “stress management strategies” because it’s the #1 priority according to their public. But the predominant stream of consciousness around stress management tends to be solely about managing the body and the thoughts (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction). Of course, the body is important but it’s not disconnected from the mind. For this reason, Satori also offers a mantra-style Meditation program to balance the body and relax the mind.
To take this further, instead of only looking at the body and the mind, we need a multitude of strategies that offer us something to feed our spirit – the essence of who we are as people.
When people feel they have a sense of well-being, where their bodies are functioning pain-free, and they’re getting the rest, life is good. And once you feel you’ve gained control over your thoughts, and emotions; you can pivot towards managing the mind’s reactions more easily.
Each of these components of one’s life require us to make different choices. If you want good sleep, you need to attend to your evening (at least envisioning it) well in advance, vs just getting home at 7 o’clock with the kids and you start diner then.
BTW, I do no evening activities with my kid – none. We’re home by 5:30pm at the latest. But that is me attending to my evening and my sleep well in advance. Every family manages this differently based on the strategies they know.
So…strategies are the crux of a complete stress-management system.
People lead complicated lives and learn, grow and change at different paces. Increased productivity comes from this understanding within the self. It takes a self-reflexive person to engage a multitude of strategies.
People are making decisions based on what they think they know, as opposed to the understanding that our blocks are oftentimes related to our blindspots.
Stress management is to recognize your own biases, predispositions, expectations, attitudes and aspirations.
>>Are your expectations of others, and yourself, being met?
>> Is there an overall positive attitude in your home that makes you feel instant zen when you walk through the door? If not, what strategy can you implement to give you that? Is it a frame on the wall or a painting of a particular colour?
>> Or might you benefit from organizing some time in the kitchen with your family cooking a delicious meal and losing yourself in a good meal together?
The Pro-Mind Experience dives into helping health practitioners understand their personal needs, based on 6 Universal human needs. We take a diver into your values and beliefs, and question if they’re actually your values that you’re holding onto. True stress management helps you imagine and envision an alternative way of being. In Strategic Intervention coaching, that’s “modes of being”.
Most importantly is to train yourself to question what you’re thinking about; metacognition.
Are you being mindful of your discussion habits at break time?
Are you contributing to your workplace’s culture or are you deteriorating it, and creating more toxicity for the sake of getting things off your shoulders?Are you stressing and being in “work-mode”, or….
are you texting your lovey mid-morning with happy thoughts about what’s to come next in your personal time?
Managing your stress, at its core, is applying a few highly relevant strategies that will play up your strengths. As well, it’s important to consider the implications of your thoughts, and not let them dictate your emotions.
Stress management strategies to help you
- Keeping a positive attitude.
- Accepting that you can’t control everything.
- Being assertive rather than aggressive by speaking your feelings rather than becoming angry, defensive, or passive.
- Managing your physiology through meditation, yoga, or tai-chi.
- Having a regular exercise routine.
- Maintaining a healthy diet with more greens, and less refined foods.
- Using your time more effectively.
- Setting appropriate boundaries and learning to say no to requests that over-extend you and your time.
- Making time for hobbies, interests, and chill-time.
- Adapting a good sleep routine.
However, learning how to implement them into a “sustainable system” is what really needs to be offered to our busy professionals. Virtually everyone on the planet knows that getting good sleep is important for recovery, but managing the distractions are the underlying issue here. This goes back to questioning your conversation habits at break time.
What I aim to do inside of our program, The Pro-Mind Experience, is to help people understand that growth is a human need which means we all naturally have personal and professional goals. And we all work towards them in unique ways, based on people’s routines, values, beliefs and self-worth.
In order to be able to get a system in place to achieve them is the crux of meeting your needs. Do you even know what your needs are?
That’s what our 6-module digital program The Pro-Mind Experience does – straight from Module 1, Lesson 4 when I teach you the importance of setting some fail-proof health goals, and then offer you a 4-page PDF download to accompany the lesson to help you kick start a new You…a more relaxed you that knows how to meet your own personal, psychological and spiritual needs.
If you’re a health practitioner who’s wanting a deeper dive into your mind and want a system to get you there in a step-by-step manner, Satori Pro-Mind has got you covered…regardless of having no time. You only need 15-20 minutes a day, and we all have the same 24 hours in a day.
Relevant Podcast Episodes:
Episode 14 – Top 5 Myths of Meditation
Episode 21 – 3 Ways To Build A Healthy Routine (cheatsheet available below)
Episode 22 – Deconstructing Routines & Changing Daily Habits
Episode 33 – 5 Interesting Facts About Meditation
Blog Post – The Importance Of Employee Health & Wellness Programs
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