Dealing with stress in your business life.

[Dave A]

I remember sitting in my car some mornings knowing that we were in DEEP trouble. Switching off deliberately all negative thoughts and changing my mind frame, put a smile on my face looking in the mirror and say to myself I am the best looking broke bugger in the world! Walk into the office with a broad smile and greeting everyone with a cheerful voice. I also knew this totally annoyed my then partner to bits It actually freaked him out completely! I remember doing exactly the same in front of my client’s office for meetings. My car became my programming space. Where I motivated myself and told myself how good I was and how wonderful I was.

Man, that brought flashbacks. I'd forgotten how effective that was/is. Particularly the power of a smile in the car to reprogram your own attitude before you walk in to the lion's den. Maybe I need to re-open my mobile university - I just don't drive as much as I used to though.

I think setting realistic targets and constantly planning so you are completely aware of real factors influencing your situation can most certainly contribute to make stress less. But the moment you say to yourself or anyone else,... " I have no idea as to why this is happening!!!" you lost it and stress will destroy any chances you had.

Two catch phrases come to mind that I have found so true in this:

• Face your fears and they disappear, and
• Your fears are always far worse imagined than realised.

I personally can go for ages under pressure without any issues etc. Until i relax. Then things tend to catch up with me and i go down for the count.

That is actually a pretty clear indicator that you are carrying fairly serious stress. Don't fool yourself. There is a physiological effect. It's just not hammering you yet because you're still young. As you get older, it hits harder. (That might apply to most everything )

You do draw attention to one of the problems with chronic stress in particular; you don't even realise you are suffering until you stop long enough to actually start really relaxing.

If you go away for a long weekend, and find that you get restless just sitting around doing nothing - you're probably in the danger zone and need a longer break to break the stress habit your body has gotten into.