It is difficult to flourish when we are experiencing major stress such as overload, conflict, tensions in relationships, failure or regret. We can, however, minimise those or even eliminate them.
When we experience stress it is difficult to focus on anything else. It has a negative effect on the cardiovascular system, reproductive hormones, respiratory system, endocrine system, depression, addictions, pain and anxiety disorders.
Stress puts pressure on the individual to change psychologically, physiologically and interpersonally. But in the absence of stress people feel bored and lack inclination to act. There are many ways of managing stress. This could be, for example, by creating new environment for ourselves where we do not contain the stressors. Or, as a second most effective strategy, learn to be resistant to stress.
We are certainly better off if we can eliminate and reduce stressors, but most of us do not have the control over our environment. Therefore, we need to try and develop capacity to withstand the negative effects. This is done by enhancing our personal resiliency and well-being such as relaxation techniques. There are also, some very short-term reactive strategies such as drinking, taking sleeping pills or letting the anger our causing harm not only to us but also to others. But, we need long-term strategies. They require more time to implement but these are effective and long-lasting. The pay off is enduring.
Time stressors
Time stressors results from having too much to do in too little time. They cause increased job dissatisfaction, tension, heart rate, cholesterol level or skin resistance.
Time, is also the greatest stressor for managers. It is often caused by the overwhelming amount of information that we encounter these days. We are, therefore encouraged to use our time effectively and efficiently. It is beneficial to use calendars and planners, generate 'to-do' lists and learn to say 'no'. These are the examples of the efficacy approach.
We could:
(1) need to spend our time on important matters and not just urgent matters,
(2) need to be able to distinguish what is important and what is urgent,
(3) results rather the methods are the objectives, and
(4) we have a reason not to feel guilty when we say 'no'.
Important matters are those that produce the desired result and meaningful purpose. Urgent activities are those that require immediate attention. They often relate to an uncomfortable problem that requires a solution as soon as possible. At work, for example, handing customer complaints or employee crisis are important and urgent. E-mail and interruptions may be urgent, but less important. Innovation, planning and development activities may be important but non-urgent. Small talk or arguing are the not important and not urgent activities. The Urgent and Important matters generally dominate out life. Even interruptions by others which seem unimportant may seem for us lacking purpose and focus thus creating stress. When these times are being experienced we often try to escape to something not important and not urgent to relieve the stress.
A more effective alternative are focusing on the activities that are Important but Not Urgent. We can label them as opportunities as they allow us to accomplish high-level results. Planning, preparation, personal development are crucial for long-term success. These should be on the top of our priorities on the time management agenda. But we must be able to determine what is important to us and what is urgent. We may want to, for example, dedicate certain block of times for these activities in our calendars first before scheduling other appointments.
We may also want to ask ourselves the following questions to determine what is important:
* What do I stand for? What am I willing to die for?
* What do I care passionately about?
* What legacy I would like to leave? What do I want to be remembered for?
* What do I want to accomplish 20 years from now?
* What would be the few principles I want to guide others through?
The answers to those questions will help us evaluating what is important in our life. Other people will help to determine what is urgent. We can even write principle statements for ourselves. Basing the time management on those principles will help us to judge the importance of matters as well as raise the capability for saying 'no' without feeling guilty.
We need to accomplish what we want to accomplish with our time. It is, therefore important to know how we accomplish those things. So how do we do it without wasting our time? It might be helpful, for example to determine out tendencies when it comes to time management. Here is few other techniques that can be implemented, ideally all of them at some point:
Read selectively.
Make a list of things to accomplish today. Focus on what you want to achieve and not only on what you want to do.
Have a place for everything and keep everything in its place.
Prioritise your tasks. Focus on important tasks and then on urgent tasks.
Do one important thing at a time but several trivial things simultaneously.
Make a list of 5- to 10-minutes discretionary tasks.
Divide up large projects.
Determine the critical 20% of your tasks.
Save your best time for important matters. Routine work may be good when the energy level is low. Reserve energy for most important and urgent tasks.
Reserve some time during the day when others have no access to you and use this time to accomplish Important and Non-urgent tasks.
Don't procrastinate.
Keep track of your time. Write down on how you use your time.
Set deadlines.
Do something productive while waiting. Try reading, planning, preparing, reviewing, outlining of memorising.
Do busy work at only one set time during the day.
Reach closure on at least one thing every day.
Schedule some personal time to be alone.
Allow yourself to worry at only specified time.
Write down long term objectives to have clear direction in mind.
Improve your management of time.
There are also some helpful rules for managers at work:
Hold routine meetings at the end of the day.
Hold short meetings standing up.
Set a time limit for the meeting.
Cancel meeting once in a while as they only should be held for achieving specific objective.
Have agendas, stick to them and keep track of time.
Start meetings on time.
Prepare minutes of the meetings and follow up as commitments made public are more likely to be followed up.
And not only for meetings:
Meet visitors in the doorway.
Go to subordinates office for brief meetings that helps to control the length of the meeting.
Don't over-schedule your day.
Have someone else answer the phone.
Have a place to work uninterrupted so that you can concentrate on your tasks
Do something definite with every piece of paperwork and sometimes it means throwing it away.
Keep the workplace clean.
Delegate work, identify those who will cary them and give praise for completion.
Managers who use these kind of techniques have better control over their time, accomplish more, have better relations and eliminate many of those time stressors.
Encounter stressors
Encounter stressors result from interpersonal interactions. There are conflicts and lack of trust. At work, it has a significant negative effects on productivity and satisfaction.
It is difficult to maintain positive energy when you are at odds with someone and when you feel offended.
One factor that helps eliminate this stressors is community. When people feel part of a group the stress is relieved. There is a certain strength associated with with small and primary work teams.
One way of achieving it is developing an 'emotional bank account'. It is the feeling of trust that one person develops for another. The more 'deposits' made, the stronger the relationships. Too many 'withdrawals' weaken relationships by destroying trust, security and confidence.
'Deposits' are made through treating people with kindness, courtesy, honesty and consistency. It grows when people receive love, care and respect. If we do not keep promises, not listening, not clarifying expectations, showing irritation or do not allow choice things are falling apart. Disrespect and autocratic rules destroy the sense of self-worth and relations are ruined.
The more we interact, the more deposits should be made to the emotional bank account. When it is well stocked mistakes are easily forgiven and ignored. But where no reserves exist, those incidents cause distrust and stress.
Goals focused on contributing to others also produce growth orientation in us leading to higher achievements and more supportive relationships. We make 'deposits' in the 'emotional bank accounts' when focusing on offering contributions to others well-being rather when focusing on what we want.
Emotional intelligence also represents important skills in helping people manage stress. This comes through accurate perceptions of others emotions and responses, ability to understands others responses, understanding of what is appropriate social behaviour and ability to manage difficult situations. Social and emotional intelligence have strong positive relationships to success and reduce stress. Thus ability to learn new skills i.e self-control, self-awareness, problem-solving, effective communication, managing conflict, empowering others our stress level will decrease.
Situational stressors
Situational stressors arise from certain circumstances and environment. These may be caused by rapid change that may cause physical illness like headache, nausea, backache or eyestrain.
Studies suggest that employees who are given more freedom to make decisions experience fewer stressors. There is, therefore a job redesign model designed to help that. For example:
(1) skill variety and ability to utilise different skills,
(2) task identity as an opportunity to complete the whole task,
(3) task significance as the opportunity to see the impact of the work being done,
(4) autonomy as the choice on how and when the work will be done, and finally,
(5) the feedback as to receiving the information on the success of the task accomplished.
We may want to form Identifiable Work Units where employees can decide on how to complete their work, workers learn one another's job, rotate assignments, experience a sense of completion and stress is reduced.
If workers are given more authority to make decisions it also reduces stress. The same with having opened feedback channels when the employees know that their tasks are being evaluated.
Anticipatory stressors
Anticipatory stressors include potentially disagreeable events that threaten to occur, the unpleasant things that have not yet happened but might happen. We feel a fear of those events, fear of loosing a job or fear of embarrassment in front of other people.
These are experienced by almost everyone and this type of stress can be paralysing.
What can help is setting short term goals. We just need to specify the desired goal and identify it as specifically as possible. We identify a dozen of specific action steps and establishing accountability. The more challenging the tasks the more disciplined and rigid the actions should be. We may also try to make it more difficult to stay the same then to change. This is by involving others and ensuring the accountability to adhere to the plan, establish the social support network and adding penalties for nonconformance. And finally, there should be a reward system. We need to know how and when we achieve the goal. It is through identifying the indicators of the goals. We set those to reduce the anticipatory stresses.
One another technique is to something called 'small-wins strategy'. Begin with changing something that is easy to change and the multiple small wins eventually create movements towards the desired goals. When we focus on small meaningful outcomes we can enjoy visible success. We develop confidence and optimism. Thus the fear is eliminated as we built self-confidence with small wins.
The rules are simple:
(1) identify small and easy-to-change activity that is under our control,
(2) change it in the way that leads us to the desired goal,
(3) find another small thing to change and change it,
(4) keep track of the changes that you are making
(5) maintain the small gains you have made.
Developing Resiliency and Well-being
This not only means developing the capacity to manage stress but also finding ways to flourish even in difficult circumstances through enhancing our well-being.
We all differ widely in our ability to handle stress. It depends on the resilience that they have developed.
One of those factors that increase the resiliency is life balance. This involves developing a variety of dimensions in our life: Physical activities, Cultural activities, Work activities, Intellectual activities, Social activities, Family activities and Spiritual Activities.
Often, however, when we experience an overload in one activity, we tend to dedicate more time for it. This is unfortunately counterproductive. For example, if we focus mostly on work, the less creative we become. Additionally, refreshed and relaxed minds think better.
Well developed individuals who give time and attention to cultural, physical, spiritual, family, social and intellectual activities are proven to be more productive and less stressed then those who are workaholics.
Psychological resiliency refers to ability of a person to return to original condition after experiencing trauma, challenge or threat. It also means flourishing in the situation of stress. This may mean access to loving and supportive relationships, development of self-awareness, self-confidence, self-efficacy, involvement in spiritual activities and establishment of personal goals after a traumatic experience.
They include meaningfulness at work and gratitude. When the work is meaningful the stress is less likely. People often describe their work as a job, career or calling. Those who do job focus of financial gains. Those with career orientation are motivated by accomplishments and success. They work to achieve prestige, power, promotion, title or advancement. And finally, those who sense their work as a calling focus on a meaningful purpose. They seek for a greater good regardless of the rewards. Workers with calling orientation report fewer experiences of stress, higher level of trust and confidence, commitment, less conflict and higher level of satisfaction. Consequently, the organisational performance is also higher. The sense of calling is not dependent on the type of work, rather with a positive meaning of work. Any kind of work can be reframed in a positive light. Even the most unpleasant tasks can be interpreted as calling that has a profound purpose.
The work is meaningful if:
* it has an important positive impact on the well-being of humans,
* the work is associated with a personal value for example caring, helpfulness and compassion,
* the work has an impact that extends beyond the immediate time frame and creates a ripple effects,
* the work builds supportive relationships and foster reciprocity ( when a person contributes something to another person without the expectation of receiving something in return).
Another seemingly simple but powerful tool for building resiliency is the practice of gratitude. We might have gratitude journals where we write the things that we are grateful for. Expressions of gratitude of one person also motivates others as well as reciprocal behaviour. These produce important impacts on individuals and organisations.
Temporary stress- reduction techniques
As far as building resiliency through the methods described above are more desirable as they bring more long-lasting results, sometimes situations are beyond our control and we are unable to eliminate them. Sometimes, we must take immediate actions to reduce stress.
The short-term strategies are highly reactive and they effects are only temporary. They should only be repeated when stressors are encountered. You can use them when you cant answer a question you have been asked or facing a presentation of an important meeting or any time you are suddenly stressed.
Muscle relaxation involves easing the tension in the muscle groups. We tighten each muscle group for five to ten seconds and completely release the tension. All parts of the body can be included.
Deep breathing can also be rather helpful. We take several deep breaths, holding for few seconds and exhaling slowly.
We can also use imagery and fantasy to eliminate stress temporarily. It may involve visualising an event, for example successful performance and imagining ourselves accomplishing a particular goal. We may also focus on pleasant experiences from the past. It reduces anxiety and pressure temporarily and put people in a peaceful condition.
Love-kindness meditation practice is also well-developed contemplative practice that focuses on self-generated feeling of love, compassion and good will towards one self and others.
One another technique is called rehearsal. Through this method people work themselves through potentially stressful situation and reactions. Talking about a particularly hard situation and removing oneself from it can be rather helpful.
Summary
We have summarised the four basic stressors: time, encounter, situation and anticipatory that could potentially cause negative reactions in individuals. These can be moderated by the resilience that we have developed for coping with stress. We can eliminate stress through effective and efficient time management, making contributions, improving emotional and social intelligence, work redesign, prioritising, small wins and goal setting.
We can also improve resiliency through healthy diet, personal well-being through focusing on meaningful work, reciprocity and gratitude.
Some basic behavioural guidelines to take from this post:
Try to eliminate the stressors, then focus on developing resiliency and well-being.
Use effective time management practices and generate your own personal mission statement. Try to ensure that low priority tasks do not occupy your time when high-priority tasks are neglected.
Build collaborative relationships based on mutual trust, respect, honesty and kindness. Make 'deposits' into others 'emotional bank accounts'.
Work on improving your emotional intelligence.
Define priorities and short term-goals to provide direction and focus to activities.
Improve your life balance by engaging in physical, intellectual, cultural, social, family and spiritual activities.
Improve small-wins strategy, celebrate small successes both yours and others.
Learn relaxation techniques.
Form open and trusting relationships with at least one other person to provide you with support during stressful time.
Identify the meaningfulness of our work.
Establish some contribution goals that makes the difference to those around you.
Practice gratitude.
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