- Perspective. Sometimes its good to step back and ask yourself, “Is that going to make any difference in ten years’ time?” 90% of the time, the answer is no. Get perspective. Put the issue you face into perspective, accepting that most of the things we worry about are not life-or-death issues. Try to mentally shrink what’s worrying you, and it won’t seem like such a big deal after all.
- Balance your expectations. So many of us have sky-high expectations on ourselves, way higher than we would set it for anyone else. Whatever it is you are stressed about ask yourself how you would talk to a friend in this situation. Would you be yelling at her that she will never get it sorted out or is an idiot to have got into this situation or would you treat her with kindness and love? Exactly…treat yourself nicely and be kind with your thoughts and the stress will slip away. I would always advise a friend to destress over a cup of tea, to sit down take a breath and put this into a practice, a small step each day to be kind to yourself.
- Get to the root. Noticing that you are ‘stressed’ can actually be good for you because it’s a signal that you can either carry on doing what you are doing and getting the same results or that something is in need of change. I think the best way to look at stress being good for you is that it is simply a signal for change.
- Small changes can yield big results. First of all, our thoughts rule how we feel. It’s important to understand how we think creates our feelings so if we are feeling a feeling we don’t want to feel, like stress, we have to start thinking about things differently. We teach all our students at The Life Class how to think correctly because the truth is none of us were taught how to ‘think’ or deal with our ‘emotions’ at school and yet this is so important to understand fully that your thoughts create how you feel. If you are stressed the first thing to do is start by writing down your thoughts – get it out of your head and onto paper.
- Power to the word. Start to look at those thoughts. In other words are you choosing thoughts that feel good or feel stressful? Let’s say you are stressed about a presentation you need to do for work. If you are thinking ‘I can’t do this’ you won’t be feeling great. Instead you need to start thinking about it differently to create a different feeling. Start challenging yourself on the opposite in other words start looking for evidence to prove to yourself, why you absolutely CAN do it.
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