While many believe stress is the demands placed on them either physically, emotionally, spiritually or mentally, this is not correct as stress is how our body responds to these demands. Or how we respond to those demands placed on us. Nobody is responsible for our stress - WE are responsible for our stress because it is we who decide how to respond to those demands.
If we are going to manage stress then we must look at how we respond to the demands of everyday life. We can either control our response or we can let the demands control us. It is not necessary that life control us. I am reminded once again of the Serenity Prayer - God, Grant me the Serenity to Accept the Things I Cannot Change, Courage to Change the Things I Can, and Wisdom to Know the Difference.
Many times I forget that I am in charge of this; I get to decide how I will react to the things that happen in my life. I used to get upset and all bent out of shape if someone suddenly changed my day for me until I realized that the only one I was making miserable was ME. Once I began to believe and act that way, sudden changes no longer upset me as much. Oh, I still want everything to go the way I had planned it, but it’s not as important that things always go according to my plan.
There are multiple methods of managing stress that happens in our lives. One is as I said, remember that there are some things we can’t do anything about and being upset because they happen isn’t going to get us anywhere so let it go.
Another method is to prepare a response before the demand happens. Many demands are not really unexpected - most of them have happened to us at some time in the past so if we make a list of the things that we have stressed over in the past and determine ahead of time that we aren’t going to react as we have in the past then we can respond in a positive way to those situations. Being prepared ahead of time will allow you to easily go on your way instead of blowing up when something that has happened in the past does so again.
A lot of events that cause us stress can be controlled by proper planning. If we make a schedule and try to stick to that schedule we will not be stressed by normal things that happen and when something unexpected does happen, we can either squeeze it into our schedule or remove something that we already had planned so as to direct our attention to the new task. Having a schedule allows us to know when to “hold ‘em, and when to fold ‘em” when it comes to unexpected events in our lives.
If we have properly defined what we react to with stress and thought about the issues and solutions ahead of time, we will be well on our way to properly managing our stress. If you want more information on Stress Management, get your free Stress Management report here.
