How to stress less
In March 2011 I opened a gym, I had, in a little under two months written a business plan and put together everything I needed in order to open. Not an ideal situation but I had little choice at the time. I was learning as I went, I was having fun, it was also terrifying and exhausting.
Problem after problem poured in constantly dragging me away from what needed to be done to push the business forward, I was surviving each day on adrenaline alone then heading home to my new born baby for the 9pm til Midnight shift, my wife was exhausted too.
Life like this would not have been sustainable for long, burn out would have been unavoidable after just 6 months I’m sure. Yet 6 months later, I doubled the size of the gym. If someone told me that would have happen at the start I’d have laughed in their face through my weary blood shot eyes.
In July 2017 I sold the business and spent a month teaching the new owner the ropes. I could see in his eyes that beautiful mixture of fear and excitement that I had had at the beginning. His frequent remarks on my calmness had confused me at the time but on reflection, having had the time to look to my past I see my journey more clearly.
When you start something new you face many new and unfamiliar challenges and new is always perceived by the brain as a potential threat. The adrenaline is there to prepare us to make decisive action. As time goes by though the new becomes familiar. You get perspective, you learn what’s important and what’s not, you learn which hedges hide the Sabre tooth tigers and which are merely blowing in the wind. You learn what a time waster looks like, you create structures and systems and principles. Most of this you do on autopilot by dealing with the problems.
The stressors haven’t changed, you have grown, you've become more resilient and resourceful and you’re able to take on more challenges. This is what growth looks like. The better your tool kit for approaching stressors the better able you are to manage stress and continue to grow.
This all happens to us organically until we feel we can develop no more, as Peter Drucker says “we rise to the level of our incompetence” but if we select the right tool kit and we spend time cultivating it, 'sharpening the axe’ we can continue to rise far more quickly and smoothly and beyond that genetic sticking point.
Get some good stress, and it’s all good stress
In an epidiomelogical study at the University of Pennsylvania that began in 1985, it was reported that those who believed that stress was a major factor in their health were right. The study involved 7,200 men and woman. Those who believed that stress had been affecting their heath “a lot or extremely” at baseline were more than twice as likely to die from coronary heart disease or suffer non-fatal myocardial infarction.
The study allowed for all lifestyle factors, it was the belief that made the difference. Our perspective and our definitions have more of an impact on our health than any other factor. As Ray Dalio ($17 Billion hedge fund manager) says, Pain + reflection = growth. It is struggle or stress followed by recovery that build resilience, it is physical struggle that creates physical growth. The absence of stress is death.
Take some time out and reflect on the stories you tell about your life. Are they skilful, do they serve you?
Can you change them to better support the life you want for yourself?
Get a growth mindset
Carol Dweck psychologist and author of ‘mindset' speaks of the fixed and the growth mindset. Fixed mindset is the belief that we have a certain capacity for skills and achievement and we quickly rise to this in any area and then we can rise no more.
It is the belief that we have a certain level of talent and that this is our lot. Indeed some incredibly talented individuals carry this mindset, John McEroe for example. It served him well to a point but each time McEnroe was presented with an opportunity for growth, i.e. a flaw in his game was exposed. He refused to see it and would look externally for something to blame in order to maintain his self image as the best in the world.
The growth mindset allows us to quickly identify our weakness and triggers and to then admit them, compensate for them, or overcome them directly. Stress, particularly stress in the work place is often the fear of judgement were we to hold our hand up and say, “I don’t really understand this could you please help me?”. Of course employers can do a lot here in creating an environment where people understand it is ok to do so. Especially as doing so it incredibly beneficial to business. However, you shouldn't let a perceived lack of this culture stop you from doing it, asking for help when you need it is always the best course of action. (more of work culture later).
Cultivate your own growth mindset, note your weaknesses. Where do you most need to develop and who can help you? If you aren’t sure, why not ask a friend, colleague or superior.
Know who you are
We are wired to care what people think. If you are, for some reason, cultivating a list of people who care most about what people think I would suggest looking to the people who most often say “I don’t care what people think”. Stress is often at its height when we indiscriminately care what everyone thinks.
Our mammalian brain is wired to monitor our level of acceptance in order to infer our level of safety and hierarchy within the tribe. Of course we aren’t really in any tribes today and not being accepted by someone will not get us cast out and eaten.
Constantly seeking acceptance however may have us doing all sorts of things we don’t want to and will lead to a life of stress and discontent.
The first step in avoiding this is self definition, what are your values, what do you believe? As soon as you know who you are you are free to stop seeking to discover who you are from every challenge and interaction you face.
The second is to start developing a taste for those with taste. Stop taking diet advice from people on diets, stop taking stress management advice for people who are clearly overwhelmed, stop taking business or financial advice from people who do not demonstrate repeated or ongoing success in those areas and don't take on board every criticism.
Every year the best episode of x-factor is the one where people with no taste who listened to people with no taste stand in front of people with a lot of taste in that area and say, "I’m going to be the next Adele, listen to me sing” don’t be one of those.
EVERYONE has an opinion, VERY few people have a valid one, cultivate the skill of telling the difference.
It makes for a much less stressful life.
Make the unknown known
“You always…”
“You never…”
“They always…”
“They never…”
“He is like this…”
“She is that sort of person…”
Stress is the unknown, when we have complete prediction and response we feel completely secure in our environment. The less prediction and response we have the less safety we have within our environment and the more stressed we feel.
Prediction = total brain picture of the current environment’s impact on safety
Response = Pattern of action that allows calm, conscious interaction with environment.
It is for this reason that our brain creates labels and it’s own emotional definitions in order to create safety. We also build our own stories about what people are like or how they ALWAYS behave. We define every person as either threatening or safe, every situation as threatening or safe, every environment and even title. All unconsciously for the most part.
Our brain attempts to create safety but does so in extremes and constant stress is the result. Self knowledge is the first step in undoing this. We can’t know how anyone else will react in any given situation but we can learn to master how we act.
The next is to explore your definitions of the labels and people in your life and assess whether they are skilful given your goals. If not you can set about changing them both by reflection or getting to know them better.
Find your recipes
Everything has a recipe, disasters, spaghetti Bolognese and emotions. If we can locate the recipes we can prevent the dishes we don't like from being made.
Hide the liver and you won't find yourself eating liver and bacon any time soon... I wish I thought of that 30 years ago…
Everyone is different or course but my recipe for how I like to feel (energised and calm) requires: Meditation, exercise, 7 1/2 hours sleep, fasting, meat and veggies, simple and clear daily actions, solving puzzles I enjoy working on, a tidy house and good relationships with my family.
If I notice any Ingredient falling away I know that my time is best spent working out how to put it back not on getting stuff done.
Not feeling how I like to feel means not performing how I want to perform, why would I do that?
This is just one recipe but our life is filled with them. If we take the time to note their ingredients we can significantly limit the number of times we experience things we don’t want to and maximise those we do.
Build Resilience
Professional athletes, the best ones, guard a secret that few others know about. We see their astonishing accomplishments and speak of their ability to dig deeper than anyone else, to call on a reserve of energy. For sure some have this and it is certainly part of the formula.
Less we'll known though is their ability to not dig deep and their ability to completely switch off.
Resilience is a formula:
Effort + recovery = resilience
The best athletes in the world know that they are best served by sticking a toe out of their comfort zone and then stepping away to recover. Smashing the comfort zone, physically or mentally requires a length of recovery that most can't afford that also breaks the rhythms of progress or leads to illness, injury or chronic stress.
To build resilience, define your current comfort zone then establish a measurable. Then start expanding it and recovering. Unsurprisingly, you'll need to define what recovery is made up of yourself.
So there you have it, my recipe to stress less, use one, use them all, above all, if you want to change something you’ve got to take action in a new direction,
otherwise, its just not going to change,
Ed Ley