There is no stress in your life, is there? Okay, I know the answer. Not surprised by that answer, either.
Much of our stress is a by-product of fear. Think about it. If we had no fears, we would have no need to stress about anything, would we?
We allow ourselves to become uptight over finances, careers, health, relationships, and a ton of smaller, less significant areas of our lives, don’t we? I know. I have been there.
No doubt, life would be lived far more productively and joyfully if there was no stress in our lives. But that’s just not realistic, is it?
Earlier in my life, I often heard the saying, “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” Rarely does anyone reach the pinnacle of success without experiencing some “heat” as they travel life’s road.
The presence of stress and pressure tends to “heat up” because of the anticipatory nature of what lies ahead. Since stress is ultimately a part of life, the obvious goal should be to lessen it. But how?
There is one thing for sure, managing stress is purely something that comes from within us. We can learn, practice and develop personal thoughts, beliefs, strategies for instinctively building stress-related defenses that work from the inside-out.
I haven’t found any absolute formulas for managing stress, but I have discovered there is one that potentially maximizes results. That is the innate ability to focus on the execution of the task one is performing--not on what the result of the execution might mean.
To say it another way, we need to surrender the tendency to think about the end result.
Instead, we should make a real effort to focus on the proper execution of the actions or task that will inevitably create the end result that we are striving for. Make sense?
It takes courage to admit that stress, pressure, anxiety--are tangible negatives in our lives. Reduction of these “negatives” depends on taking appropriate – and sometimes—courageous action.
But isn’t that one of the things courage is for? Once we have accepted this fact, we can then use our courage to focus on the “how to” and then let the chips fall where they may.
