Are you feeling stressed? Don't compromise your well-being by letting stress get the best of you.
Here are 10 tips for managing and preventing work-related stress:
1. Recognize who and what light you up
In other words, find the things and activities that excite you the most.
2. Remember YOUR WHY
This means, focusing your energy on what really matters to you—your values, overall goal, or purpose.
3. Manage the sources of your stress
You can do this by paying attention your stress triggers, observing them, preparing your potential responses to the worst case scenario.
4. Develop healthy and helpful responses.
This is about noticing and changing how you respond to work-related stress.
5. Create routines for yourself and use them
Creating routines for yourself, simplifying your choices, and reducing the amount of decisions you have to make can help you avoid mental tension.
6. Reach out to others or seek support
It is important to be clear and to express your needs, desires, and expectations to those who can help you create positive outcomes and experiences.
7. Communicate your needs and concerns
If your stress is work-related then a solution could be speaking with your manager or supervisor to help you develop a plan for managing or removing what may be causing you discomfort.
8. Practice self-compassion and be your own best friend
Notice your self-talk and be kind to yourself. Instead of just focusing on your mistakes, notice and celebrate your success and accomplishments.
9. Set time to recharge
This could be just blocks of five to fifteen minutes a couple of times a day dedicated to your personal time.
10. Learn to relax
Many people are either thinking about the past or worrying about the future. Find ways to be in the present moment. One way to do this is by quieting the mind, paying attention to your breath, feeling the sensations in your body. You can also try mindfulness techniques, walking mediation, doing yoga, or listening to soothing music.
For more details on the tips outlined above and to explore each tip further so that you can learn to relax, take care of yourself, and show up as your best, download my free workbook!
Learn to relax, take care of yourself, and show up as your best!
I truly believe that authenticity, well-being, and authentic leadership are closely intertwined. If you follow my blog, you will notice that I say this repeatedly, promoting our own well-being is a way for us to embody and express our authenticity.
For women in general embodying and expressing our authenticity in our daily can become a task that is not always easy to accomplish. And for women professionals and women leaders, in particular, promoting our own well-being can be downright challenging. Many of us operate within systems and structures that do not honour or accept our well-being as women and our feminine realities. So, our mere existence as women, and the way we show up at our job and in our workplaces can become our forms of leadership.
Not too long ago, I shared a private experience among friends in my Authentic Women Leaders group. I was debating whether I will also share it here in my blog for the public to see. I am sharing it now because I imagine some of you may relate.
Before writing the post, I had initially sat down in front of my computer with the intention to do “work”. But when I turned on my computer I discovered that it was empty! It seemed to me that all my folders and files were missing. I was so upset. I felt like I had some kind of out of body experience!
So, I ended up writing about my menstrual cycle. Yes, my menstrual cycle!
It was day one of my menstrual cycle, which meant if I had to go to “work” or go to a physical workplace, I would’ve been deemed useless, incompetent, a sorry sight to look at. Physically, I was not at my best. I was pale. I had dark circles around my eyes. I felt weak, bloated, heavy. My body was telling me to slow down, drape myself over something comfortable, lie down. My body was telling me to allow it to do what it was supposed to do, what it was meant to do.
While I was in that miserable state, I also recognized that during my menstrual cycle I am at my best spiritually.
At that time of the month, I’m mentally awake and alert. All my senses are heightened. I can hear more clearly. It was raining when I was writing. I noticed that I could hear every drop of rain falling on the roof top. Every drop echoed in every corner of my being.
I can also smell everything. It is Fall season here so it’s the time of year when all the windows and doors in my house are closed. But, when I was writing, I could smell what my neighbours were cooking in their kitchen.
I also experience this awesome sense of openness and connectedness with everyone and everything. I could feel everyone in the group, each and every person, in whatever part of the country and the world they are in. I could also feel all the beings on this planet—people, animals, plants, trees, mountains, oceans … I could feel everyone and everything!
I am sharing my post with you because I know some of you also experience the same cycle that I experience monthly. I also know that in our world, in our society, in our workplaces that do not always honour or accept our feminine realities, our menstrual cycle can be perceived as a negative event (to say the least). I’ve heard of male bosses complaining about getting tired of their female employees calling in sick every month. “How dare them be unproductive?”
Whether we acknowledge it or not, we, women, are feminine beings. Our physical body, the container that holds our being is feminine. Our being is connected to something bigger than our sense of self such as the energy of this universe, including the cycle of the moon and the tides of the ocean.
Work is just work. It does not define us—at least not our Self and all of our being.
Sometimes the organizations that we work in or work for and the people within them, such as our bosses and colleagues, do not understand or do not want to accept the power that we hold. They do not accept us BEING. So, we compromise by disempowering ourselves. We show up as less than who and what we are meant to be. How can we be authentic and express our well-being within systems and structures that deny our existence as women and feminine beings?
I recall the times when I used to show up to my workplace, pretty much half-dead because of my menstrual cycle. I went to my workplace not because I was expected to be there and that things will fall apart if I didn’t show up. I went to my workplace because I was not honouring myself. I showed up merely to do, to soldier on. There was no being me. I did not exercise my power, courage, and integrity. I denied myself of my own authenticity and well-being.
I am far removed from that reality now but I almost imposed the same thing to myself … until the wonders of the universe caught my attention by emptying my computer!
The universe was telling me to embody and express my well-being. Relax. Take care of myself. Just be present in my body and with my experience.
CONCLUSION
All sorts of work-related stress and anxiety inducing events can get the best of us. I’ve consulted with many working women professionals to hear about their own journey to their authenticity, well-being, and authentic leadership. I’ve learned lots from my consultations, some of which I will share in my future posts. My conversations with these women professionals also inspired me to look for ways I can help remedy their current issues and challenges. One of the things I came up with is a workbook with tips and simple exercises for managing and preventing work-related stress.
