No one, including me, wants to feel powerless in the face of adversity. It’s frustrating and disruptive, and despite my resiliency, it happens sometimes. But rather than surrender to learned helplessness, I do my best to actively improve my circumstances. Having a sense of personal control can do wonders for managing stress.
Launching this blog, fortuitously timed to coincide with the new year, I want to share strategies that contribute to my success as a beauty professional, salon owner and advocate. These actionable strategies have proven especially useful at times when I feel stuck or overwhelmed, a reminder of my own abilities, determination and power to make change. The first strategy outlined below focuses on taking responsibility.
“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” – William James
Just thinking about stress can be stressful, but what is it exactly? While the Mayo Clinic rather benignly describes stress as a “normal psychological and physical reaction to the demands of life,” it does not have a neutral connotation. In our imprecise efforts to qualify and quantify stress, we use a variety of negative words: pressure, trouble, difficulty, hardship, downward spiral, suffering, worry, hassle, burden, anxiety, burnout, etc. Stress might not be inherently bad, but that the word “eustress” exists to describe “good” stress and we struggle to think of examples speaks volumes.
In practical and general terms, the concept of stress leads to lots of questions:
• What are the physical, psychological and behavioral impacts of stress?
• How can we quantify the amount of stress an individual experiences? How much is too much?
• What’s a normal reaction when individuals can experience the same stressors, and yet react differently?
Normalizing stress may dispel the unrealistic expectation that we can avoid stress completely, but does not absolve us of responsibility for our present circumstances.
Let’s acknowledge how routinely we blame “stress” for our problems. Feeling depressed or anxious? Stress. Neglecting your health? Stress. Avoiding family obligations? Stress. Procrastinating and underperforming at work or school? Stress. Losing sleep? Stress. Seemingly, the next logical step would be to ask: what causes your stress? Your physical health, mental health, relationships, work, major life events, the state of the world? Your answer will be personal, subjective and maybe even time-sensitive, but no less valid because even your biased perceptions matter.
But have you considered why what you identify as stressful (a cause of stress) could be simultaneously symptomatic as a result (an effect)? Stated simply, your stress has a bidirectional, causal relationship with your problems. That said, the use of a euphemistic simplification does nothing to solve problems that have objective explanations and workable solutions.
Evading your responsibility for both your stress and problems allows this cycle to continue and escalate.
When stress negatively affects your ability to function and enjoy life, what are you doing about it? Every day presents numerous opportunities to take responsibility and do things differently. When you realize what’s not working, find what does and just do it.
An earlier version was published by Beauty Cast Network.