3 Strategies to Manage Stress More Effectively

3 Strategies to Manage Stress More Effectively

If there’s one thing we all share in common, it’s experiencing stress in our lives.

The way we handle and cope with stress varies for all of us. And what might be encouraging to know is that it’s not something you’re born good or bad at, it’s a skill you can develop.

For those that manage stress well, they’ve developed an effective skillset throughout their life for coping and navigating through stressful situations. In emotional intelligence, this skillset is called stress management.

Something important to note, before I go further, is that there are other things that complicate our ability to cope with stress effectively, which include trauma. Past trauma adds additional complexity to our thinking, our stress response and our ability to regulate our nervous system. For those struggling with past trauma, I would encourage the support of a therapist or other trained professional in times of increased stress.

However, regardless of where you find yourself and what stress you’re navigating right now, there are 3 strategies that you can start using right away to learn to manage stress more effectively.

1. Learn ways to regulate your nervous system

ways to regulate your nervous system

Regulating your nervous system is crucial for overall well-being and functioning. The nervous system plays a central role in controlling and coordinating all the activities of the body.

When it comes to stress management, the nervous system is closely linked to the body’s stress response. Chronic stress can lead to an overactive sympathetic nervous system(fight-or-flight response), which can have detrimental effects on physical and mental health. Learning to regulate your nervous system helps manage stress and promotes a more balanced and relaxed state.

Here are some ways you can start regulating your nervous system:

  • Breath work
  • Meditation
  • Mindfulness practices
  • Yoga
  • Exercise
  • Adequate sleep

2. Check and challenge your mindset

challenge your mindset

Your current mindset can have a huge impact on how you experience the situation you’re in.

The beliefs you have about yourself, the assumptions you have about the situation you’re in and how you let your fears dominate your thinking directly affect how you respond to certain situations, the stories you make up, the feelings that surface from those stories and consequently how you experience stress.

If you are feeling powerless, if your optimism is low, if you are consumed with worry and if you’re overthinking and struggling to come up with a solution, these are all indications that possibly your current mindset isn’t serving you.

What we don’t often realize is how much our mindset keeps us from seeing a solution or a way forward. It can often keep us in the past pointing to where we’re most afraid. The key in these situations is to challenge our current thinking and look beyond our current frame of reference.

Here are some questions that will help you do that:

  • What are you currently hustling for? – perfectionism, FOPO (fear of other people’s opinions) fear of failure, fear of being seen as weak, stupid, incapable.
  • What limiting beliefs are running the show that need to be reframed into more empowering ones?
  • What fear might be dominating your thinking that you need to face and address?
  • What could you be learning from this right now and what opportunity is there for you to grow?

After answering these questions ask yourself how you might shift your current mindset and thinking to be more empowering. Then, create action steps from this new thinking which will help move things forward.

3. Create an intention for how you’d rather be right now

set an intention

When we’re stuck in stress, it’s hard to see our way out. It’s hard to see past a certain stressful situation or time frame. We get lost in the trees instead of being able to see the whole forest.

An empowering way of moving ourselves through stress is to create an intention for how you’d rather be experiencing life right now? It’s essentially a vision for a future time and a future you.

Examples of intentions are:

  • I want to feel more calm and relaxed
  • I want to feel more empowered in my life
  • I want to feel more in control
  • I want to be more boundaried with others
  • I want to speak my truth more often

Here are some questions to help you create your new intention:

  • What would you rather feel right now?
  • How would you rather be responding to life right now?
  • What would you like to take action on that you’re afraid to?
  • What things do you need to say and to whom?
  • What’s most important right now?
  • What word represents an intention that you’d like to make?

Now that you have these 3 strategies, look into them a bit deeper, learn more about different aspects of these strategies (eg. learn about breath work) and start trying them today.

Maybe you could commit to doing one breath work or meditation practice every day, maybe you could commit to 30 min of exercise 3 times per week, maybe you could have a crack answering the questions about your current mindset.

Whatever it is, start doing it.

Because the reality is, no one’s going to do it for you, no magic wizard is going to appear and remove all of your stress with her wand.

It’s up to you to look after yourself. And you’ll thank yourself for it, I guarantee it.

Learning To Let Go of Control

Learning To Let Go of Control

“If only I could control what happens then everything would be ok.”

Imagine if you could control how people respond to you and treat you and how things operate around you? Imagine if you could have things exactly the way you want them? Imagine if you didn’t have to deal with this thing called ‘uncertainty’. Ah, what a world that would be?

I know as you read this, a part of you is daydreaming for a brief moment about how good this would be. Although that might sound nice, there are limiting factors to always needing to have control. In fact, needing to have control is actually something that has control over you. 

What do I mean by this? Let me explain. 

When we need to have control over things, we need things to go a certain way in order to feel ok. We tend to be rigid in our approach to things, we tend to be less flexible with others and we tend to be closed to feedback or new ideas. In effect, we close ourselves off from the outside world and operate in a closed loop of our own internal thoughts, beliefs and assumptions.

At a deeper level, we are operating out of fear.

Fear of: 

  • Rejection
  • Being hurt
  • Not being heard or seen
  • Uncertainty
  • Emotional exposure
When we operate out of fear, this is where the fantasy of control ends. When we operate out of fear we’re no longer in control, we are now controlled by our need to be in control.
learning to let go of control
When we operate out of fear, we’re reactive and protective. When we operate out of fear, we’re rigid and inflexible. When we operate out of fear, we often feel powerless. When we operate out of fear we’re at the affect of our blindspots and default negative behaviours. We’re not being discerning or thoughtful. 

What we need most in these moments is not to focus on holding onto control. We need to let go of the idea that control will protect us and make us ok. 

Instead, we need to address the fears that are driving our need for control. We need to face the thoughts and assumptions that are bringing up those fears. And then, we need to bring curiosity, compassion and empathy to that. 

This might also involve: 

  • Having a difficult conversation with someone
  • Making a difficult decision 
  • Trusting that the future is not the past
  • Being open to a different perspective
  • Being wrong
  • Trusting and forgiving others

A simple question you might want to ask yourself to help in this process is “what am I protecting myself from or avoiding by being in control or needing to have control?”

And then, give yourself the time and space to explore the answer to that question. 

letting go of control

This will be the beginning of learning how to let go of control so it doesn’t control you. The more you practice this inquiry, the easier it will get. Slowly, the need for control will ease as you shift to being more present and self-aware to what’s going on for you during challenging situations. Slowly, you’ll learn to address your fears and take the required action that will help you move through them. 

When you learn how to move through your fears and take action in your life, that’s when you get a sense of being in control again. It’s the very thing you wanted in the first place, you just needed to approach it from a different direction! 

The Work of Authenticity

The Work of Authenticity

How many times have you said to someone or you’ve heard it said to you, ‘just be yourself’?

Or, ‘just be you, everyone else is taken’.

It turns out that being yourself is harder than all those quotes say.

In fact, this takes up the majority of the work I do as a coach, supporting individuals to not only be their authentic self but first they sometimes have to find it first.

Why is it hard though? Why do we have such a hard time showing our true selves, saying what we really think, sharing our feelings and admitting our fears?

This is such a huge question and without trying to sound like a great philosopher or even admitting that I have the answer, from a coaching perspective, it all comes down to how we learn to adapt to our life experiences. Human’s are highly adaptable, that’s what makes us successful as a species.

However, it’s also this trait that comes into play when we’re struggling to ‘be ourselves’ or be vulnerable or be more authentic in how we show up in our lives. Ultimately, we adapt our way out of being ourselves as we learn to protect ourselves from being hurt and learn strategies to get our needs met.

And then there’s Jennifer or Thomas, both working professionals, aged 43 and 51 respectively who come to me feeling stuck, wanting to find a deeper sense of meaning in their work and feeling a bit lost with what the next step is in their career (and life as it often happens that way).

This is where the work of authenticity comes in.

Because it is work. 

the work of authenticity article

It’s work to undo or even look at the adaptations you’ve made to navigate your life experiences that have distanced you from your authentic self and/or your values.

It’s work to undo the strategies you’ve developed to protect yourself. It’s work to face the fears you might have found a way to avoid. And it’s work to acknowledge those parts of yourself that perhaps you learned to reject or be ashamed of.

In this article I’m not sharing a ‘how to’ or a ‘5 steps to being authentic’ or any kind of answer on how to do it. I’m simply telling you that it’s work, it’s deep work and it’s hard work.

It’s hard work to be authentic because of all the forces against us to not be, especially as we get older.

So don’t give up the endeavour because it’s hard. Don’t stop the work because you’re afraid of what you’ll find. Keep going, keep searching, keep opening and keep being curious.

Because the gift of it all, of all the work you’re doing is freedom, healing, inner peace, connection with yourself and others, being who you want to be and having what you truly want in your life.

Experience the gift of authenticity in your life. Inquire today about being supported in the work through professional coaching. 

Levelling Up Is Not Comfortable

Levelling Up Is Not Comfortable

Levelling up is not comfortable. In fact, while you’re in it, you can often feel like you’re levelling down. 

When you’re levelling up in your life, you’re essentially growing in an expansive way. And when you finally get on this new exciting path and the universe begins to deliver what you’ve been dreaming about, you’re surprised when negative thoughts and doubts seep in, or when shame washes over you or when those old limiting beliefs start to chime in. 

You may ask yourself, I’m starting to get what I’ve wanted all this time, why am I feeling like this?

My friend, it’s because you’re at your growth edge. You’re on the fringe of your comfort zone and you’re literally in the process of breaking through your growth edge. And your brain will be wanting to protect you from danger so it will send you all those old messages again, trying to convince you to retreat. RETREAT BACK to safety! 

This is a critical moment in your change. And whether you push through or not, this will determine whether you follow through with the change you seek or retreat and remain unchanged and stuck where you are. 

Your choice, ignore the old messages and have the courage to create new ones and continue down your new path, or believe the messages (again) and stay where you are. 

The choice is up to you.