I Stopped Getting Stressed The Moment I Decided To Stop Getting Stressed.
Here’s how you can too.
Am I the only one who turns to Medium for help because most of the common Googlable advice out there is repetitive and boring poo?
If anyone tells me to exercise one more time as a way to get over my life crisis stress, I’m going to throw a burrito at them. A burrito filled to the brim with guac, sour cream and salsa.
Anyway, I get the eating well, sleeping enough, exercising and meditating part of it — sure, they work IF you’ve (mostly) figured out your life and just need a way to deal with the daily madness.
They’re NOT enough when you’re still in your twenties, figuring out your sense of self and are mostly stuck trying to make sense of this world and your place in it.
They’re certainly NOT enough when you get crippling anxiety about living your life as yet another corporate minion.
They’re most certainly NOT enough in the crazy internet FOMO that is such an integral fabric of our lives, unlike for our parents.
You see,
For us we need to address the root cause of the stress, not just the symptoms.
P.S — just to clarify, we are talking about the bad stress here, the kind that causes us to retreat into a fetal position lying on the bed because we can’t see a way out. Good stress gets things done — no complaints there!
Why do we get stressed
Okay, so why do we get stressed in the first place?
Stress is an evolutionary response to a threat in our environment, i.e., our caveman ancestors see a lion which triggers their stress response and they run.
But threats have evolved over the centuries to not just be injurious to our physical self but also to our mental and emotional selves.
According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, stress can threaten us on five different human needs:
- Physiological — do we have enough food, water, sleep, clothing and shelter?
- Safety — do we have a safe physical and mental environment,i.e., personal and financial security and good health? This is why not having enough money causes some stress.
- Love and belonging — do we belong or identify as belonging to a social group, small or large? Like family, friends, etc.
- Self-esteem — do we have a clear identity of who we are, are we happy with ourselves and do our feelings or worth come from mostly internal sources?
This is the biggest stumbling block for most of us. We are still figuring out who we are, we are still trying to optimize our life (and we mess up more often that not) and a lot of our self-worth is still tied to what other people think of us.
- Self- actualization — are we able to achieve our full potential and be who we want to be?
This need is our long term driver to find our passions and do work that energizes us. If at anytime we sense that we may not find this, we start getting stressed.
What should we do about it
So if self-esteem and self-actualization are the needs that stress us the most, what can we do about them?
Self-Actualization Threat
Dealing with the threat to self-actualization is a little bit simpler. So let’s address that first.
The secret is…..
Patience and planning. Ta Da!
Okay okay, I’m gagging at the un-sexiness of the advice too. To this day, I believe that I could be the exception to this but sadly I haven’t seen any proof, so we (and I) need to accept this.
Simply put, loving every minute and living it purposefully is a lifetime’s work.
So, chill already.
Don’t try to be 40 before you’re 40.
The fun is in the experiences. What will you do once you get there?
Plan your journey and stay on course.
You might get there in spectacular firecracker fashion or you might get there like sleek, quiet and deadly James Bond.
If you were looking back 50 years from now, would firecracker or James bond matter? Or would you just be looking back on the journey and feeling satisfied?
Self-Esteem Threat
Dealing with the threat to our self-esteem has three questions we need to answer.
1. Do you have a clear identity of who you are?
Most of us are still figuring this one out (cue previous point) so it’s hard to feel good about ourselves when we don’t even know who we are and what we like.
Again, this will get better with time as we learn, try and have more experiences. So just keep doing what you are right now.
2. Are you happy with yourself?
Not happy with your efforts? Try harder.
Not happy with your body? Eat better, go to the gym, get a coach. Stop freaking dieting! It only makes things worse.
Stressing out is not making you happier. Progress, even small, will.
Stop with the self-pity and move your butt.
3. Do your feelings of self-worth have a large external component?
For most of us, our ego is built around what others have told us about ourselves growing up. It is built around the childhood accomplishments, praise and approval we’ve gotten over the years.
So when we step out into the real world and suddenly have none of these, we feel like we have no self-worth.
On top of that, we get criticism (constructive though it may be), we are told to be open to performance feedback (ummm…) and we are always comparing ourselves to our friends who seem to be going on too many perfect holidays.
Instead of having any internal feelings of self-worth coming from our journey, our fragile ego is subjected to external pressures, all of which are telling us that we aren’t good enough.
So of course our self esteem is hammered.
Gaining back self esteem is the first step to feeling confident again. To do that,
Change your compass from external to internal. Be guided by your opinion of yourself, not others’ opinion of you.
Remember,
You are NOT the performance assessment at the end of the year.
You are NOT the number of likes the photo got on Instagram.
You’re NOT the perfect beach travel selfies on Facebook.
You are who you think you are and who you want to be.
You’re not a victim and certainly not a guinea pig whose identity is determined by what your boss, friends or family say.
Give yourself the respect of relying on yourself before you listen to others.
And watch it change your life.
For step-by-step guidance on how to change your identity to be internally driven, check out this free resource.
Go from JUST reading to taking ACTION— start with these free resources to discover your passion, quit procrastin-eating and say bye-bye to stress.
Any awesomeness that you experience as a side effect is completely intended.
