Starting a new business has been both exciting and stressful. As my business grows, my schedule gets more full and I am jump from one client to the next. While it has been exciting to see new clients come to me from referrals and new avenues of business open, I find myself often wishing for more time to get things done, like my own chores or working on a plan for the future of my business. It’s not that I don’t want my business to grow and to have new clients, I am just finding myself overwhelmed and stressed, which then makes me feel like I want things to slow down. Instead of giving into the stress and becoming crabby and tired, I use some techniques and thought processes to stay positive and productive. In a time where everyone seems to be constantly busy and stressed, having some tools to overcome those negative emotions are a must. None of these concepts are new or surprising, it’s just a matter of actually doing these things to help ease the stress and craziness of everyday life.
Three Simple Ways to Get Out of Stress and Choose Happiness:
1. Think about why you’re doing what you need to do.
Having a purpose behind doing what you must do is essential to push through hard times. Even down to household chores, if you have a bigger reason as to why you must do these things, it will make doing them so much more enjoyable. For instance, if you need to go grocery shopping and do laundry, but you find that these are stressful activities that you do not want to do, you can think about the benefits you provide to yourself and your family by completeing them. What are you giving to yourself and your loved ones by accomplishing these tasks?
You can apply the same thought process on a larger scale to your career. If you find you are dragging your feet to get out of bed and go to work in the morning, think about why you are doing the job you have. What are you bringing to the world by doing your job? I often struggle to get out of bed. I have just never been a morning person. When I wake up, though, I think about the people I am going to help by getting up and doing my job that day. I love helping people, no matter the size of the task. I always have. Being helpful to other people makes me feel whole and like I have a purpose. So by thinking about the actual people I will be helping that day and how I help them, I find energy and strength to get up and get moving.
You can put up small reminders around your house or in your car that will help you be in your purpose rather than be in stress and negativity. Put a post it note next to your bed or on your mirror with your reason for why you do your job. Put a picture of your family or your friends at your desk to remind you of what you will be able to do with them by going to work everyday. Having little triggers around to bring you back to why you do what you do will be extremely helpful when stressful events and tasks come up.
This is an example of a trigger that my husband has in his office. He is a real estate agent and must keep himself motivated and focused. He uses this picture of us with this note as a trigger to remind him in the office of why he does his job. The note says: "Never forget why you are here. Always remember what you are capable of."
2. Time Block
Have you ever felt like you have a million things to do and don’t even know where to start? I often felt that way as a teacher and I definitely do now as a business owner. I use time blocking to get all my tasks scheduled and completed. It is a technique that takes some planning ahead and time commitment but it is well worth it. Time blocking is when you physically write out a schedule of when you will do tasks and how long they will take.
A good system to have is to create a master to do list of everything that needs to get done. You can choose any period of time; I like to go week by week, filling in my schedule on Sundays. Once you have your to do list for the week, you can get a calendar of your choice - a paper one, your phone calendar, google calendar, etc - and start filling in the items on your to do list. As you fill in your schedule, you can block in time for your work, your chores, and even for your family and personal time. Once you’ve done that, you are sure to feel less stressed, as you know when everything will get done, and you even know when you will have time to do what you enjoy doing.
One of the keys to time blocking is making sure that you stick to the schedule you create. For instance, if you time block two hours in the morning for a work task, it is critical that you stick to only using those two hours for that task. If you allow yourself to become distracted by email, phone calls, facebook, or whatever else might come along, your time block will become less effective.
This is an example of my time block for this week. You can see jobs scheduled in, as well as time for choreography and theater rehearsals (one of the things I like to do in my free time). As the week goes on, I will modify and add to my time block to accommodate new tasks that come up.
3. First Day/Last Day
A little less than a year ago, I started personal growth work through seminars put on by a company called Klemmer and Associates. If spend any time around me, you will no doubt hear me talk about it because my Klemmer experiences have become some of the most important and meaningful experiences of my life.
One of the lessons I’ve learned through my experiences with Klemmer and Associates is to treat every day like it is your first day and your last day. If you think of each day as the first day of your life, you can come at it with excitement and no regrets. If you think about the way you felt on the first day of school, the first day of a new job, the first date you went on, you will probably remember feelings of excitement. What if you could have that feeling of excitement every day and with no feelings of shame or regret about past decisions? That would probably make each day feel quite different and would make getting out of bed each morning more enjoyable.
While you think about each day like it is the first day, you can also think about it as if it was your last day on the planet. If you thought about each day as your last day, you would come at it with urgency and no fear of what people might think of you. What if today was really your last day? What would you want to get done? Who would you want to be with? The truth is, you really don’t know when your last day is, so why not treat every day with the urgency you would have on your last day. If you’ve ever lost someone suddenly, you might know the pain of not getting to tell someone you love them one last time, or not getting to accomplish important goals before it’s too late. Why wait for someday when someday could be too late?
When I wake up and think of everyday as my first day and my last day, I am excited to get out of bed and accomplish my tasks. I am urgent because I want to make sure I get done what I want/need to get done and to make sure that the people I care about know how I feel. the balance between excited and urgent get me up and moving, without feel crabby about having to get out of bed or feeling stressed about everything that needs to get done.
Everyone is busy and have tasks that could give them stress. You get to make the choice of how you deal with those tasks. It is easy to give in to the negativity and comiserate with others over how stressed we are. I have been there too. We complain to each other about how much we have to do and how we don’t know how to get it all done. We make jokes about it and vent thinking that will make us feel better. The thing is, if you focus on stress, then you will feel more stressed. Instead of focusing on how stressed you are, why not try one or more of these techniques and see if you feel any different? Focus on all the joys and happiness you already have in your life, and I think you will find that you will still be busy but you won’t feel stressed or crabby. Value your time because it is the most precious thing you have, and once it is gone there is no getting it back. Choose Happiness.
If you are interested in learning more about these techniques, check out these links:
http://www.the1thing.com/
http://www.klemmer.com/