dream | act | succeed

How stressful is your life?

Sounds funny, doesn’t it? We talk about stress all the time, but how do we quantify it? On a scale from zero to ten? Like hot girls? Just kidding of course. But now I have your attention! So, please, tell me! How do you quantify your stress level? In percent? In letters? In colors? In numbers?

I guess, it’s not really important how to quantify stress, but rather how to deal with it, right? I mean, we are all experiencing some kind of stress in our lives. Positive stress, negative stress, personal stress, stress at work, stress with our partners and so on. There might be literally thousands of versions and situations in which we might experience something people call stress.

But stress is not all we might experience! There might also be pressure! Pressure to deliver! Pressure to perform! Pressure, pressure, pressure!

In this life, we need to meet our own expectations! But not only that! There are also expectations from outside sources we should meet! Doing a good job at work! Showing our parents that we made it! Stuff like this!

The task is of course not to avoid pressure and stress under all circumstances no matter what, but instead, to figure out a way how to deal with it! Well, sounds really hard! And in fact, a lot of people out there, including me, seem to struggle with it!

But today is not about solving this issue in life, today is about understanding it!

No matter what you do this time around, you will always experience some kind of a pressure or stress in your life. Maybe it’s your presentation at work, the exam next week or the social event in the theatre. Well, at least with the corona thing going on, we don’t need to go to social gatherings any longer! But whatever it is, your body will clearly indicate that something is wrong!

Sure, the symptoms can differ, depending on you and your body! Maybe you are sweating a lot, or your hands start to shake? No? Maybe your head turns red, or your arms start itching? Maybe you have a hard time focusing on something, or can’t really calm down any longer. Whatever it is! Your body will react to stress and pressure in some kind of a way! That’s just a fact! But we, at least most of the time, don’t see those symptoms as a warning sign! We don’t realize where these issues are coming from and most of the time just ignore them! We move on! We don’t listen to our own body! We don’t listen to inner feelings! We are just ignoring them. Moving on! Pushing through!

But that’s not the way to go! That’s not really helping us in the long run! Sure, for the next meeting it will work! But this is your job man, you will have thousands of meetings in the future! You can’t push through all of them without actually trying to change something. I mean sure, technically you can, but I wouldn’t recommend it!

The next time you feel some kind of a pressure, or stress in your life, just use this moment and try to understand. Listen to your body and figure out what he wants to tell you. Maybe it’s the uncertainty of new situations, maybe it’s the talking in front of other people. Whatever it is, once you understand how your body reacts, you can use this knowledge to your advantage and find a way how to deal with it. Sure, you always start to sweat heavily in high stress situations, well, don’t wear another sweater next time. Or your stomach crashes to the floor? Well, then don’t eat something before such an event next time.

I know, that’s not making the stress go away, but is the life hack that will help you today! And sure, the most of us have already figured out these things anyways and are doing them automatically!

Next time, we will focus on how to actually turn a high stress situation around and make us dealing with it much better!

See you next time!