How to Use Stress for High-Performance Success and Happiness

Because LinkedIn is a place for professionals to share experience, strength, and knowledge about the business of life, I am compelled to share my most recent article in Medium today.

From the original article at Medium...

We’ve all experienced the stress of work and life. Unless we learn to manage stress, it’s evident it can kill us.

I’m not a shrink or scientist, but I’ve lived for almost sixty years, raised a family, started and sold small businesses, lost everything I had before bouncing back and getting more in return than I ever imagined.

Nothing I read or studied in school taught me more than living it for real.

I wish none of you ever lose your mind or shirt chasing your dreams, but I know I’m not the only one who takes a beating from life now and then.

My goal for this article is to share what I learned from my experience and help many others.

Root Cause Analysis

Why does stress, anxiety, depression, and other toxic states of taking us out of the game so often?

It’s not like we’re living in 16th-century villages and mud streets. Heck, we’re supposed to have everything we need, such as five TVs.

WebMD reveals two categories of stress in America; work and home life.

Work Sucks

How is possible so many of us seek to practice the Law of Attraction, but all we keep attracting is another boss from hell who yells at us too much?

• Too many of us are stuck in dead-end jobs we don’t like. HR types call this engagement. We’ve all had jobs that suck the life out of us.
• Our workloads are overwhelming, the hours too long, the commute drains us, and the boss won’t quit harassing us.
• Most of us feel underappreciated, underpaid, drowning in debt, and living in a real-world fight club buying stuff we don’t need and can’t afford while work sucks the life out of us.
• Some of us work in places that make us sick due to dangerous work environments. We are insecure about having any chance for advancement unless we nail the speech our boss is asking us to make spur of the moment.

Life Happens

I’ll never forget the day my father died. We all lose people we love. Most of us recover with time.

• Parents are divorced about half the time. Most of us come out fine even though it’s stressful.
• We lose jobs, businesses, and income. We reinvent ourselves and find new ways to add value.
• We lose homes. Living in a van down at Walmart is no joke unless you love camping in crowded parking lots.
• We lose our health and die prematurely. We’re experiencing a health crisis.
• We are lonely. Isolation and loneliness lead to severe issues with mental health, anxiety, and depression. How can this be happening in a world that is supposed to be digitally connected? Barbara Sher does a phenomenal job of sharing her way out of isolating darkness and poverty; service to others.

Meet Maslow; We Have Needs

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Abraham Maslow is the grandfather of psychology. Most of us learned about when we were kids. I didn’t pay attention to Maslow and more than I got into reading Gone with the Wind because I had other priorities like sports and getting at least one date before I turned 16.

Maslow proposed his psychology theory in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation.” He defined the universal needs of humans and our motivations related to how we behave. We don’t need to be Ph.D.’s in psychology to look at the image below and know from direct, personal experience what it feels like to:

1. We watch a movie during which the good guy gets kidnapped and jammed into the trunk of a nasty car with a hood over his head. I don’t know about you, but I need to fast-forward to feel comfortable breathing again.
2. We take a long hike in the Arizona desert and run out of water 123 miles from the nearest water hose or fountain.
3. We lose our job, small business, income, and all of our assets. There’s only $300 in the checking account after we file the bankruptcy papers.
4. We wonder where we will live because we’re losing the house. Which tent will work the best if we have no choice but to live down by the river?
5. We lose a lover, spouse, or soul mate over things we can’t resolve — attachments, resentments, and toxic emotions are a drag.
6. We start businesses and careers, and we fall hard.

Role Models Show Us A Better Way

High-performance athletes, entertainers, artists, and business leaders know how to make stress their friends. The opposite of stress is recovery. If we can’t or won’t recover from repeated stress and trauma, we crash and burn.

The way to make stress your friend is to shift your mindset, open your heart, and remain coachable, willing to trust more the ebb and flow of nature. For me, when I learned how little control I have over anything I sought to control, letting go was one of the most significant reliefs of all.

We choose to become part of the solution to achieve our purpose as humans. To do this, we seek clarity. When we are clear on what we are supposed to do for work and how to use stress for success, the business of life gets easier.

Mindset Is Everything

Our mindset determines what we think, say, and do. What we believe leads to action, and we all get to choose to be part of the solution. Mindset, self-view, is everything because life is a game of confidence and resilience.

“As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul…”

― Hermes Trismegistus

We must learn how to master the inner game of leading a more abundant life, including work that gives us meaning and income sufficient to meet our needs but not to shut out the rest of the community supporting everything else.

What we believe shapes what happens in life. Most of us have the power to shift our mindset, grow, and be of more service in our home and community.

Go With the Flow of Nature

What happens when we fight nature by making too many bad choices or allowing us to remain stuck in dark places? What happens when a pro athlete finishes a tough training session or competition? How does an animal recover after they hunt and eat? Where do bears go in the winter?

Here are some examples of how being part of the solution makes stress your friend.

• Grown-ups learn to love the naps we hated as kids. Same with sleep. We know how we feel without it.
• Animals know how to recover naturally. Humans struggle to remember this even though we have smartphones.
• Babies know how to crash naturally. It’s only through the hours and days most of us are conditioned into a combination of good and bad habits that we violate the laws of nature and wonder why we can’t sleep. Then we see how grown-ups behave during elections.
• Athletes choose a mindset to train, perform, rest and recover. The athlete who ignores the natural law of stress, output, exertion, hunt, kill, eat, recover with a long nap in the den just far enough away from the freshwater in the river.
• Artists find bliss in their creative flow. If you’re a writer, you know what it feels like to get “lost in time” while practicing your art. Some of us even get paid for it by sharing our work with the Medium community of creatives. But when we’re done pounding the keyboard, we know how to take a well-earned break.
• Lonely people find their way out of isolation by being of service to others. Check out this compelling story from Barbara Sher at TEDx.

I’ve noticed as I age, I go more with the flow. I’ve learned this from others who have been where I’m going.

The Power of Purpose, Clarity, and Priorities

In closing, we confirm the reality of stress in our lives today. We covered the root causes of stress. And we reviewed our needs as humans with a quick refresher from Maslow.

We learned how role models show us ways to use stress for success. Imagine more of us feel safe living and working among a well-run tribe, family, neighborhood, company, or community. The leaders walk the walk and set the tone for a culture that performs in ways we can see on the bottom line.

When humans align and work together by finding similarities more than differences, we get along better. We see how this works in healthy relationships, families, and organizations.

When we get along and watch each other’s backs, we feel safe. When we feel safe, we sleep well at night. When we sleep well at night, we wake up full of energy. We focus our energy on doing our unique part in the community such as fish, garden, teach, or put out the house fires, and heal the sick.

The way I’ve discovered to use stress for high-performance success and happiness is three-fold:

1. Let your purpose power you. When we know our purpose at work and in life, we are empowered to take action in the right direction. If we don’t have a goal, it’s easier to get lost. I believe we share a personal purpose of using our God-given intellect, learning how to happy and healthy using stress to our advantage.
2. Strive for clarity. When you are clear about your vision, mission, and goals for work and life, you have clarity. When you have clarity, you have more confidence to make strategic decisions and take action to make your home and work a better place.
3. Choose to be happy. You can only control yourself, not others. Be aware of your environment, and be willing to step away and recover. If the environment is toxic, and you are not able to adapt, then maybe it’s time to move on. Choices matter.

Practice new habits and watch what happens when you learn to use stress to make you stronger and more resilient. Trust what is and go with the flow.

Thank you for reading my article! I’d love to see your comments and engage in helpful dialogue, so more of us learn how to master the stress that can crush us like tin cans.

I love to write, speak, and share.

About Cliff Jones

My family and friends call me Cliff. I live and work in Scottsdale, Arizona.

I coach, consult, ghostwrite, and do my best to share stories that make a difference.

I’m a life-long, creative, outlying misfit who owns a small business serving other owners and leaders who would like to go where I have been after building and selling a couple of small businesses I started over the last thirty years.

If you want to connect with me, please go to my website by clicking here.