How and why do we stress ourselves out anyway? Well, why not? You and I have to start somewhere, right? (Unless you’re the kind of person who gets your engine all revved up at night to prepare for and control the unexpected stresses that will hit you in the morning when you see all those smiling faces at work beaming at you!) Here’s how to stay on top of stress, keep your change muscles flexed and your change sleeves rolled up this week.
ARE YOU A LAZY THINKER? WHY NOT DE-STRESS YOURSELF ON THE FLY WHILE YOU WORK, INSTEAD?
Below are a dozen LAZY ways to be a Negatalker (and my challenges) that you can use to negatively think yourself into a stressed-out, depressed blue state of mind, even on a day when you’ve been given the opportunity to excel:
1. “I’m the guy or gal responsible for it all!” True, you’ve got the power to make things happen at work. Isn’t that a good thing? As long as you don’t get a long face, you can accomplish what the closed mind says you can’t pole vault with a ten-foot pole.
2. “I don’t want to lose what I’ve got!” True, you have to support yourself and your family, but you don’t have to allow fear to run the show at work. As look as you don’t permit fear to sour into frustration, you can go easy down the road of change at work and feel grounded and centered in this very second.
3. “There’s no time to get everything done!” True, you can’t get all your work projects done today. But why would you cramp yourself into a too-tight time box with a ticking time-bomb clock that says: “You won’t…you can’t…there’s not…there’s no way…it’s not possible…it’s not fair…you won’t be able to pull this off…what are people going to think…you will fail and embarrass yourself…no one cares anyway…why even bother…yak…yak…yak!” Well, you get the idea. Strive for peace of mind instead of allowing your mind to become splintered and split into pieces or fragments of “can’tism.”
4. “I’m SO tired I can’t think straight!” True, perhaps you haven’t been sleeping very well because you’ve been filling your mind with worries you can’t do anything about at bedtime. So, as you crawl into the sack let your mind relax…feel how cozy and warm being in a “safe” bed can be…and thank your lucky stars that you have a second life to do what you’ve always wanted to do in the “anything goes” dream world.
5. “I should’ve gotten along better with my partner (or kids) last night!” True, relationship life can be VERY stressful at home and dim the couple lantern of love, because there is a far better chance that our expectations will crash and our hopes for the good life will be trashed. Hey, sorry, but that’s par for the social course. BUT why would you “push” homefront stresses with your partner or the kids into your work week…as if a pipeline of stress flows between your home and the office and back home again? Simple, you wouldn’t.
6. “My mind is crammed and jammed and races away with itself!” True, due to the horsepower under the hood…your mind can race away with itself (and a jumpy you along with it!) Don’t forget that you have a pair of brakes, and can decelerate and pull into a “pit stop” for five minutes during your day any time you need to. Read something positive, make a fast fun call, meditate or pray, write compassionate thoughts about yourself in an e-mail and send it to you for careful reading. A crammed mind is always open for review!7. “If I keep thinking negative thoughts…bad things are going to happen to me!” True, thinking uncensored negative thoughts IS useful in short spurts to get a grip on reality and stop living in a perfectionistic or idealistic dream world and responsibly solve problems. BUT your gloomy thoughts DO NOT cause bad things to happen! They’re just negative thoughts trying to scare the pants or skirt off of you…making you feel naked and vulnerable. Don’t go there…there’s nothing useful to learn from fear that seeks to put a stranglehold on your confidence and crash your mood.
8. “I hate not having control!” True, much of your success at work is interpersonally interdependent – you need the help and the cooperation of others to make work projects take flight. However, the harder you try to control what you don’t have control over, the ‘behinder’ you will get in your mood and tasks that you DO have control over. That’s the paradox: fear will command you focus on what you don’t have control over and fret too much about this or that – thus disrupting you and distracting your attention away from focusing on what you DO have the power to impact and change in positive ways.
9. “Why do I allow negative energy in my team to drain me and bring me down?!” True, fear and frustration are like cigar smoke that sticks to your clothing and person, whether you “allow” it to or not. BUT you can go outside for some fresh air, shower yourself with loving and caring thoughts, take a few deep breaths of fresh air, remind yourself what the most important tasks are to do today…and do what’s important instead of getting caught up in everyone else’s emergencies.
10. “Why am I SO stuck in the negative?!” True, all of us do the negative far easier than the positive because of old habits and lazy emotional thinking. Let negative feelings roll off your back like water off the feathers of a duck’s back. Sure, you and I look like a calm duck on the surface, and we’re paddling like heck underneath the surface to get from here to there. You’ve got nothing to worry about because you’re not alone!
11. “I’m falling behind and failing!” True, if you are doing something worthwhile, then you have and will experience heart-rending failures that will make you lose face in your own mind. However, you can input heart-mending words of wisdom or WOWs that keep you dealing with failures from a viewpoint of, “If I’m not failing once in awhile…than I’m not doing anything worthwhile or important to my work and family world.”
12. “I want to run away or fade into the woodwork!” True, almost everyone hides behind a “business wall” at times to soothe feelings and repair damaged self-esteem. But don’t stay in your cubicle cave, for gosh sakes…you aren’t a Neanderthal. Go out and smile, and ask: “SO, how’s it goin’ today?” Fear not…it’s not going well for most of us on Moan-Day!
ARE YOU A “PSYCHO”-THERAPIST?
O.K., one of my humorous communications clients asked me if I am a “psycho”-therapist. Well, I suppose I am. I lose my mind many times a day to scary places and thoughts that are pure bullcrap. And I have been known to keep chomping into that manure sandwich long before lunch time on Moan-Day…I mean Monday morning. Yet, I remind myself that fear is a figment of my very active imagination, and that every single day, people like you and me are caring people who are trying to get through the work week in one piece and support ourselves and our families. SO talk positively to yourself for a change of mental scenery!
WHEN THE ROAD GETS TOUGH…MAKE A BRIEF PIT STOP TO REFUEL
To that end, I wish you a week of self-compassion when the road gets rough…and that caring people like you keep traveling on the highway of life after making a few brief pit stops along the way to refuel your energy…hope…and peaceful mindedness. Will today be a new day or an old habit called “Moan-Day…Moan-Day…I can’t trust me on that day!” a playoff on the 1966 Mama’s and Papa’s hit tune?
Hey, if lovin’ and likin’ you and me is wrong—then I don’t want to be right!
Dr. Dennis O’Grady is a communications psychologist from Dayton, Ohio, USA. He is a workshop leader and keynote speaker on the topics of Effective Communication Strategies, Leadership Communication, Change Management workshops and Conflict and Anger Management seminars at www.drogrady.com. He personally uses these new communication tools to avoid singing resenting worry songs when the road gets rough, and to take a few brief pit stops along the highway of life to refuel his energy…hope…and peaceful mindedness! Why not juice up your attitude today with a little self-assertive talk that won’t fall on deaf ears?