Managing Your Stress
SUMMARY
Do you feel stressed out all the time? Or are you able to stay calm and manage your stress?
Well, stick with me in this episode because I'm going to show you exactly what you need to do so that you can reduce conflict, reduce stress, and feel greater throughout your day.
Today I want to continue our conversation around Self-Management and Emotional Intelligence by helping you to work on the competency of Stress Management.
There is a two-step process that I want to take you through and then give you some principles that you need to apply to go through that process.
When you employ this process, you will be able to manage your stress and reduce the amount of stress that you through.
Number one: Identify Your Stress Triggers.
Number two: Develop Your Stress Strategies.
To develop the strategies, there are five things I want you to consider so that you can then get yourself in a position to be able to exercise more healthy strategies as you navigate stressful situations.
The first thing is to escape the performance trap.
The second thing is to understand your brain wiring.
The third thing is to continue to develop your Emotional Intelligence.
Number four is to develop a healthy lifestyle.
And number five is to ask for help.
That's what I want to be for you. I want to be someone who can give you the support and the accountability to get the help that you need.
So from here, you need to do three things:
1. You need to get an awareness.
2. You need to have an action plan to do something about it.
3. You need to have some form of accountability.
So, what is it for you?
What is it that you are going to work on so that you can reduce your stress?
Who have you got working on that with you?
Who can support you and keep you accountable along the way?
Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week as we continue this conversation around Self-Management, by looking at how to be more resilient.
Make sure that you leave me a comment, and you share this with others, subscribe, hit the button, hit the bell, and make sure that you are here with me next week so that we can continue this conversation together.
I'll see you then.
TRANSCRIPT
Do you feel stressed out all the time? Or are you able to stay calm and manage your stress?
Well, stick with me in this episode because I'm going to show you exactly what you need to do so that you can reduce conflict, reduce stress, and feel greater throughout your day.
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the year and Master Coach Trainer. Today I want to continue our conversation around Self-Management and Emotional Intelligence by helping you to work on the competency of Stress Management.
For me, this was my biggest downfall.
For many years, I could never relax. I always felt on and stressed. It even got to the point where I suffered a physical and mental breakdown. I was burned out- exhausted by the way that I was navigating my emotions and therefore moving through my life.
What I want to do today is to give you some strategies that I've learned over the period of time. I've been working on this, and I've come out the other side a lot healthier, a lot happier, and in control of my stress.
You can reduce and manage your stress by changing a few key things in your life.
For many years, the biggest challenge I had was I was addicted to approval. I was operating out of a need to be liked and a need to be accepted by other people. And this created someone that was really challenging to be- I was pretending to be someone that I wasn't, and that in itself was very stressful.
If that's something that you are going through as well, then go back through some of the stuff we've done on Personal Power - that's the competency that will help you overcome that.
The other thing I find is people are always open for business. Even in their relaxation time, they've got their phone in their hand - they're checking emails, they're checking social media, and they're constantly (in this global 24/7 world that we live in) at work.
Another thing I find is people are in conflict all the time.
I don't just mean conflict with others. I mean conflict with themselves.
For me, the biggest challenge I have in any relationship is the one I have with myself. And that can create a lot of internal stress. This can leave you feeling completely overwhelmed and burned out, and it has chronic implications for your health.
I know firsthand the effects of stress. I know that adrenal fatigue is a real thing. And when the hormones that help us regulate stressful situations - that fight, flight, or freeze response – are overused, they get depleted. Then, when we need them, we cannot have them in the reserve that we want.
And this was my case. I went through many years of bad health because of poorly managed stress.
But it doesn't have to be that way.
When you change a few things in your life - when you develop your Emotional Intelligence and when you learn to navigate your emotions - you can go from being worried about what other people think to self-acceptance. You can start exercising some self-care and some self-control. (We talked about Behavioral Self-Control last week. So, go back and go through that if you haven't already done so.) And you can rediscover your authenticity, get back to who it is that you are.
I love that it gives you abundant energy- you feel healthier, and you feel happier.
To do this, there is a two-step process that I want to take you through and then give you some principles that you need to apply to go through that process.
When you employ this process, you will be able to manage your stress and reduce the amount of stress that you through.
Number one: Identify Your Stress Triggers.
There are many things that you navigate ( that you go through in your life) that could cause undue stress.
There are particular things I know in my own life and in the lives of the thousands of people I've got to work with that there are particular things -that could be people or experiences that press the button and elevate stress levels.
So, the first thing you need to do is identify what those triggers are.
You did an exercise some weeks ago, when you were going through Emotional Self through Emotional Self-Awareness, where you went through a 24 hour period and had a look at how you were feeling in the moment.
And that's the key to Emotional Intelligence.
By taking that to another level and going, "when I felt stressed, what was I going through at that particular time?"
"Who were the people, or what are the experiences that I was involved in that time?", you can identify the things that stress you the most.
For me, the biggest one remains traffic.
When I get in traffic, I can go from being a mild-mannered reporter to the Incredible Hulk in just a snap.
Now, these days, I don't drive a lot. So I avoid those stress triggers.
However, I could get in the car.
I could get into traffic.
What I made that mean was that I was going to be late.
And being late was going to mean that I was going to let someone down.
Because I was looking for that approval from that person (or from people in general), that allowed me to change my thoughts and take me down an unhealthy path of an internal dialogue that led me to feel stressed.
Then, I would behave in a way that would not make it any better but worse.
Have you ever raised your voice to someone three cars in front of you?
They can't hear you, but you get it out of yourself when the light changes and they don't move quickly enough.
So, it wasn't anything to do with the light changing; it was to do with the fact that I would be late. Therefore, the person who I was going to meet, would think poorly of me or think about me in a certain way.
What are the triggers for you?
So, that's the first thing: Identify the things that tend to tick you off- the things that can escalate your feelings that lead you to feel stressed and overwhelmed more quickly.
Number two: Develop Your Stress Strategies.
A Stress Strategy is what you do when you feel that unhealthy stress coming on.
Now, I need you to understand that you already have stress strategies, and they are the ones that are creating that undue stress that is making you feel the way that you are.
What you need to do now is put together new strategies.
We've talked about this before, where what we want to do is rewire our brains. So, we will go in a different direction when these things or these people are around us.
To develop the strategies, there are five things I want you to consider so that you can then get yourself in a position to be able to exercise more healthy strategies as you navigate stressful situations.
The first thing is to escape the performance trap. To get rid of that addiction to approval.
Going from performing to getting acceptance from others (which, when we don't get it, erodes our identity) to a position of self-approval.
The second thing is to understand your brain wiring. To do a behavioral style inventory that allows you to understand what things energetically deplete you. What things are outside your natural comfort zone, and to limit those and work on our ability to work in those areas.
The third thing is to continue to develop your Emotional Intelligence.
As I have said many times, I'm an Emotional Intelligence subject matter expert. However, I'm a work in progress on a daily basis in its implementation.
Number four is to develop a healthy lifestyle.
Exercising regularly, eating well, hydrating, stretching, moving, practicing mindfulness, and getting plenty of sleep by having a great sleep hygiene strategy.
And number five is to ask for help.
Asking for help is a strength. It's not a weakness.
The problem is, though, when you are operating out of the performance trap, when you're addicted to the approval of others, what you can make asking for help mean is different from what it is.
If you feel that if you ask someone for help, they will think less than of you. They will think that you're not good enough and that you don't belong. Therefore, the don't like you. Then, that's going to stop you from asking for help.
So, it's a shift in mindset first. It's changing the meaning around asking for help.
This is something that I've found very difficult to do for many years. But now I asked for help quickly.
Not always.
I'm still working on that.
A lot of times, people ask me, "how are you?" And I'll say, "I'm fantastic." But internally, I've got some stuff going on.
So, develop a network of people that you can speak to, that care about you, and you care about them, for you to be able to go, "you know what? I'm not okay, and I need some help."
If you don't have anyone in your network that you feel comfortable getting that help from, drop me a note. I'd love to help you and connect you with the right people to give you that help. If you're having so much stress that it's debilitating, it's time to put your hand up, forget what other people think, and get the help you need.
I love how once a year we have R U OK day.
My understanding is R U OK Day is something that we want to practice every day. When someone is having a conversation with you, and you go, "How are you today?" If you can sense (because you are now more emotionally attuned as you develop your emotional intelligence) that there's something that's not quite going on or not quite right in what they're saying, then go, "Hey, are you okay?"
That's what I want to be for you. I want to be someone who can give you the support and the accountability to get the help that you need.
So from here, you need to do three things:
1. You need to get an awareness. You need to get accurate around where you are with these stress triggers, with your approval addiction, with your healthy lifestyle, and all those things we've talked about.
2. You need to have an action plan to do something about it. Nothing changes unless something changes.
3. You need to have some form of accountability. One of the most incredible things that my coaches are to me is an accountability partner. So that I can make commitments about changes that I want to make. I can have their support as I'm making them. And they can hold me accountable for what it is that I said I was going to do.
So, what is it for you?
What is it that you are going to work on so that you can reduce your stress?
Who have you got working on that with you?
Who can support you and keep you accountable along the way?
Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week as we continue this conversation around Self-Management, by looking at how to be more resilient.
Make sure that you leave me a comment, and you share this with others, subscribe, hit the button, hit the bell, and make sure that you are here with me next week so that we can continue this conversation together.
I'll see you then.
