Work stress can leave you feeling powerless, so here are two easy techniques you can use to refocus your energy and perspective if you’re feeling stressed out at work. And you can do it without ever leaving your desk! (Because I know you can’t always go for a walk or cuddle puppies in the middle of a busy work day).
According to the Harvard Business Review, there’s a surprising reason women feel more stress in the workplace than men do, and it has nothing to do with childcare, emotions, or any of the things we usually suspect. Find out what trick your mind could be playing on you that’s causing stress and getting in the way of your success.
This Friday is Employee Appreciation Day, when employees are supposed to feel even more valued than they SHOULD already feel. Sadly, the reality is that many employees feel disrespected, many managers aren’t great at listening, and lots of workplaces are full of conflict and contempt.
If you feel unappreciated at work, here are 4 short scripts you can use to get a little respect, and help yourself feel better about your work environment.
Say This:
“My plate is completely full with the X Project right now. If you’d like me to take on this new task, let’s discuss which priorities you want me to put on the back burner.”
Not This:
“Fine.” <as you walk out of the office huffing and eye rolling that your manager keeps piling more and more on you, as though you don’t already have plenty to do>
Because:
We often think that our employers know exactly how much work we’re balancing – they’re the ones who gave it to us, after all! And if we make that assumption, then when they pile more work on, we feel unappreciated, like “don’t I do enough around here?!?!” Your manager may be forgetting how much work you take on, because you’re so good at it that they don’t have to worry – it’s almost like a backhanded compliment. So don’t stay silent. Speak up and remind them of your workload. No bonus points for passive aggressively taking more work on and feeling unappreciated!
Say This:
“I would appreciate it if you would look at the proposal I sent and give me feedback, so I can proceed.”
Not This:
“Sorry, but can you please look at my proposal?”
Because:
Save your sorries for when the situation calls for it! Recent studies reveal women, in particular, apologize for things that don’t need to be apologized for. When you say “I’m sorry,” simply for interrupting your manager’s time, it can be perceived as a sign that their time isn’t worth being spent on you. There’s no need to apologize for asking for a moment of your manager’s time in order to get your work done. Phrase your request in a strong but polite way, and you’ll be commanding respect.
Say This:
“I’m really pleased with the work I did on the X Project. I’d love your feedback so I can see if my evaluation of the work is accurate.”
Not This:
<Nothing, and hope your good work gets recognized come promotion time.>
Because:
It’s okay to toot your own horn when it’s well deserved! We sometimes assume our higher-ups should notice our successes, and then we get frustrated if they don’t acknowledge them. But managers are human, and sometimes they forget or don’t realize how much their feedback would mean to you. So ask!
We all need respect in order to enjoy our jobs, so speak up with confidence and say these three things. The odds are good that your manager respects you and just forgets to say it, so ask to be appreciated and hopefully it will come your way.
Happy Employee Appreciation Day! I appreciate you!
PS – in a perfect world, how would your boss show appreciation to you?
The pursuit of happiness is a worthwhile endeavor. Happiness brings all kinds of good things to our lives. But how do you make yourself be happy?
It turns out, it’s not exactly easy. Many of us make some common mistakes on the road to happiness. These five happiness habits have become common recommendations, but they don’t actually make you more happy at all!
Happiness Habit to Avoid #1: Filling Each Moment
If you’ve ever heard the phrase “live each day like it’s your last,” you’ve been on the receiving end of this bad habit. The mistake comes from a good place – we should savor our lives like the gifts they are. But this habit runs the risk of making us feel frantic and rushed, like we have to cram our lives full of unforgettable experiences. That’s stress, not happiness!
Instead, make sure you build time into your schedule for relaxation, hobbies, and peacefulness. I’m writing this sentence from a hammock right now, in fact! Don’t try to fill your life with so many opportunities that you don’t have time to enjoy just “being.”
Happiness Habit to Avoid #2: Purging
We’ve all been told that one of the true keys to happiness is accumulating experiences, not “stuff.” Research appears to concur that we all don’t need so many items lying around our house. But if you’ve ever cleaned house in a fit of fury and tossed away treasured mementos and memories, only to regret it later, you know the sad impact of this mistake. There’s such a thing as too much purging, and we run the risk of losing happy reminders of the past.
It’s a great idea to purge things that no longer serve you (see my previous entry on the 11 Things a Happy Person Doesn’t Keep Around the House). But don’t go too far. If it brings a smile or a tear, those memories are worth their weight in gold.
Happiness Habit to Avoid #3: Following Others’ Happiness
“That person looks so happy,” you think to yourself. “If only I <did yoga/ volunteered at a hospital/ knit my own sweaters/ learned how to surf/ fill in the blank> then I’d be that happy, too!” It’s true that there are some things that bring universal happiness. Volunteering, for example, has emotional benefits for nearly everyone. But you have to find your own unique calling, by volunteering for something that’s meaningful to you. Avoid tagging along on someone else’s path to happiness, and instead find the things that do it for you.
Happiness Habit to Avoid #4: Faking It ‘Till You Make It
We’ve been taught that if you make yourself smile, your attitude will naturally follow your outward expression. It turns out that’s wrong: a study from Michigan State University found that fake smiling can actually make you feel less happy and more emotionally drained. Instead of faking a smile, acknowledge your real feelings (even if only to yourself), then try to find an activity that will give you a genuine smile. I hear cat videos are readily available these days…
Happiness Habit to Avoid #5: Chasing Happiness
This might be the most counterintuitive lesson of them all: chasing happiness might actually make you feel worse. The reality is this: you can’t pursue happiness any more than you can avoid sadness. Both are feelings that come from simply being alive. By trying to chase the feeling of happiness, we set ourselves up to have a self-absorbed, ultimately shallow life (this Psychology Today article explains more about why).
Researchers say we shouldn’t chase happiness, but rather we should chase meaning. By living a meaningful life, full of purpose, we end up feeling happy and content as the end result. That’s a happiness that can last!
Don’t fall into the trap of these common happiness habits. They may be widespread and commonly recommended, but they won’t help you actually feel more happy in the long run.
How does an entrepreneur deal with stress? These three techniques – tailored specifically to the needs and worries of entrepreneurs – will help you feel peace, find moral support, and avoid stress triggers.
There have been several moments in life where I wanted to give up. I just couldn’t do it any more. Every one of those times, the problem in front of me seemed larger than I could cope with. I didn’t see how I could make any headway, or ever succeed or move past it.
Instead of giving up on life, I’ve learned a 3-step plan for shaking myself out of those moments. It’s simple, but I don’t mean to imply that it’s easy. Those “I give up” times in life are sneaky, and it can be hard to get out from under them. But it’s not impossible.
Step 1: Lean In to the Wallow
The pity party gets a bad rap. But taking a moment to indulge your sadness and frustration can be a good thing. In fact, one of the worst things you can do when you’re struggling is TRY to push through, but instead keep ruminating on the problem. Rumination and its verbal sibling, “venting,” keep you stuck and angry. It’s better to actually take a moment to feel your feelings, instead of pretending you’re okay or toughing it out.
Give yourself a few hours to wallow. Curl up in bed with a favorite treat food (not 5 favorites – you don’t want to add a sugar or salt crash to your emotional roller-coaster!) and Netflix. Take 10 minutes to write out your thoughts and frustrations. After those few hours are over, the indulging is over and it’s time to move forward to the next step.
Rumination and its verbal sibling, “venting,” keep you stuck and angry. It’s better to actually take a moment to feel your feelings
Step 2: Lend a Hand
Helping someone else is one of the best ways research has found to get perspective. Research for my first book, The Giving Prescription, shows that when we help someone else, we see our own struggles in a new light. Scientifically, helping offers several great ways to heal yourself, like increased personal connections, a sense of purpose, and an endorphin rush often called the “Helper’s High.”
Structured volunteer work is a great way to give back to others, but it isn’t the only way. Even just helping a colleague or a neighbor with a problem can earn you the same benefits. It doesn’t matter what kind of work specifically you do to help, as long as it’s meaningful to you. When you find a way to help that holds deep meaning for you, it helps you find perspective and a new way to think about your own struggles.
Step 3: Tackle Something Small
Have you heard the joke about “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!” When things feel like they’re out of your control, it’s important to take action steps to regain your personal power. So start by working on accomplishing something small. Studies show that accomplishing small things wthin our control helps us regain a feeling of personal power. When our personal power is missing, we feel helpless and hopeless, but by starting small, we can confront those feelings.
Look for a task that has a reasonable goal and a specific time limit. It can also help to choose something that plays to your strengths, so you won’t feel like the work is as much of a chore. Dedicate your time to accomplishing that one task before you move on to something else, and once you’ve accomplished that task, you should feel like your personal power is getting back on track.
Studies show that accomplishing small things wthin our control helps us regain a feeling of personal power.
It’s not shameful to feel like you want to give up. It’s a completely normal response to feeling like things are out of your control. Follow this 3-step action to both feel better and to regain actual control over your circumstances, and you’ll be on your way to having life eating out of the palm of your hand.
No one wants to be stressed out at work, but do we have a choice? We’re all being asked to do more with less, and do it faster. So stress is a natural reaction to high expectations and pressure.
Stress can cause burnout, employee turnover, frustration and anger around the office. But research suggests there may be ONE upside to work-related anxiety that might surprise you.
Stress might cause you to make more accurate decisions.
This is Your Brain on Stress
That’s right – it’s possible that people who feel anxious might be better judges of possible outcomes and problems, and therefore make better decisions. (In this interesting gender-study, for example, men in particular made very risky decisions under pressure, while women tended to take fewer risks and make more accurate judgements, even under the same pressure.) But men and women both might get more eerily accurate at making decisions the more pressure they’re under. From hitting high notes while singing to hitting targets at the gun range, stress seems to correlate with precision.
Wonder why that is? Me, too.
It may have something to do with stress making us more pessimistic. For years we’ve known that pessimists make more realistic, accurate predictions about the future than optimists. Optimists can tend to think big and envision the future positively, so their expectations of the future aren’t always realistic. It’s possible that under anxiety, we all get a little more pessimistic, and because of that, our accuracy gets better.
Being the Boss of Stress
For whatever reason, it happens. Stress makes you more accurate. So… what are you going to do about it?
The next time you feel anxious, here’s how you can use it to your advantage:
- Reevaluate your current goals. Don’t cross any of them off in a fit of pessimism, but take a realistic look at whether your timeline needs to be adjusted.
- Be a star at work. Use your accuracy to your advantage and speak up in meetings where the team is making plans.
- Plan a vacation or other personal experience. Your accuracy will make you great at picking the best B&B! You’ll be less likely to get duped by flowery language or wide angle photography.
Stress is unpleasant, but it doesn’t have to be a completely terrible experience. One great book on using stress to your advantage is The Upside of Stress, by Kelly McGonigal. In her research, stress was most damaging only if you THOUGHT it would hurt you. In fact, if you follow her steps, you can actually use stress to your advantage.
So if you want to be better at your job, don’t freak out the moment you feel stressed. Lean in to the stress, show off your awesome, accurate decision-making, and make stress work for you.
When we put off things we fear, our mind turns them into a larger threat then they really are. I’m getting my regular cancer scans (something that always causes me fear and anxiety!) showing you how to cross something off your to-do list before the end of the year if you’ve been putting it off.
If you usually put yourself last, here’s a simple 3 step plan to take a tiny bit better care of yourself. Self care leads to better health, more happiness, and lower stress, so there’s every reason to add it to your busy schedule ASAP!
The holiday season doesn’t make your stress disappear. When we tell ourselves that in December we HAVE to feel merry and joyful, we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment. Here’s how to cope when December isn’t a magical time, and you need to overcome the myth of the joyful holiday season.
