dream | act | succeed

We all experience some kind of stress.

In this modern 21st century stress has become this omnipresent part of life. In fact, if you do not experience stress on a regular basis someone may assume that you are not trying hard enough. Social media shows us the way, right?

The thing about stress is this. It’s not necessarily bad but has the potential to become pretty bad pretty quickly.

Some just need the motivation. A friendly reminder that the deadline is getting closer. And for sure, we have all been there and didn’t burnout right on the spot. No, in fact, actually it came in pretty handy. We changed our focus onto the task at hand, blending out the unimportant.

Someone could assume that a little bit of stress can’t be that bad after all and maybe this is even right. The only problem? It’s not a little bit of stress that we experience on a regular basis. No, sometimes it’s a bit more than that.

What I didn’t see was the obvious. Stress is an internal thing.

I could get pretty “stressed” or “stressed out” because of this exam or presentation, when my classmates and colleagues wouldn’t even notice a thing. For them it was just a normal day like all the others. Isn’t that fascinating? Fascinating, for sure! But also important to realize.

The stress we are experiencing isn’t floating around in the air we breath. The stress we are experiencing is our reaction to the world around us.

And don’t tell me that you haven’t been there already? We have all noticed this at some point of our journey. The only problem? There is no way out! We can’t escape. At least the most of us can’t. And so we do the usual thing. The stress monologue.

Isn’t it just me panicking? Look at all the others around you! They are all pushing through no matter what! But you can’t? Or you don’t want to? Are you that weak? Really! This is it? Your solution is to quit? To fail? To show others that you are weak?

The problem? This is causing more stress, which leads to even more stress, which leads to experience stress all the time.

I am not saying that it’s easy to deal with the problem, but not dealing with it is the worst you can do. For sure it worked in the past. And maybe it will work in the future as well. But some day or another it won’t. But then it will be too late.

Talk with yourself about the stress that you are experiencing. I know, it sounds kind of crazy, but it is the first step.

See you next time!