I am in Iceland and in the past couple of days I had a few thoughts I wanted to share with you. But before I do, let me ask you something.
How well are you equipped to manage stress in a high-demand virtual world we live in? Evolutionary our brain has developed much slower than the fast-moving reality we live in. The amount of burn-outs of high-achievers and executives is astonishing and managing depression and low self-esteem has become a bread and butter of the coaching industry in the last century.
Stress is predicted by psychologists to be building up as we progress with technology. In light of robotics and future flying cars, managing stress and learning state-of-the-art ways of stress-management is on many people’s agendas. If not on yours yet, I would highly advise you consider one. Prevention is better than cure. It’s a cheaper and a more effective way to organise your life and create prosperity and enrichment as well as a general well-being rather than fighting through stress when it feels overwhelming.
So what can we do to create success, the way we define it, without stress?
Step1. Get clear on where we are on the “Ladder of Needs”.
According to Robbins there are 6 human needs that we all want to satisfy but it’s crucial to know your most important one. The needs are:
– Certainty (generally speaking, financial certainty, stability, clarity for the future).
– Variety (a breadth of experiences, adventures, risks, changes)
– Significance (status, social hierarchy, respect)
– Love (connection, care, support, inclusion, network)
– Growth (mental stimulation, learning and development)
– Contribution (input into other people’s lives, development of others)
It looks like all of them are important. It’s true to some extent. But there is one without which we feel stressed. If only that would not be there, our life would feel miserable. Having that need satisfied, unlocks others to thrive. To understand that need is vital. Consciously or unconsciously we try to satisfy that need anyway. But if we haven’t designed our work and life to meet our need effectively, it will become ineffective and will cause us stress. We will feel overwhelmed and eventually burned out. I have worked with hundreds of professionals who had this specific issue. They were not clear on what their most important need was. Finding themselves in the arms of therapists and psychiatrists was an afterthought.
Once they identified it and recognised it, the progress was inevitable. And most importantly, progress was without stress.
Step2. Create a clear plan on how we are going to meet this need in our lifetime.
Yes, lifetime. It’s not a year or five years. Our whole identity lingers on this need. We don’t need to know where it came from (high chances from our previous family generation by the way). What we need to know, it is our life mission to satisfy this need and we will make everything possible to do that. Being conscious of that will help us release stress from our life.
So, we need a plan. Detailed plan with measures and strategies, timeline and back-up plans, to feel free. To feel like the conscious mind will take care of what we need in this life. Once that is in place, we will feel less stressed and more focused on what we want to achieve.
Step3. Create a support system to help us navigate through our life stress-free.
A support system could be a network of friends that help us relax. It could be a mindfulness practice every week. It could be anything form taking a bath to exercising yoga. The key is making this a system, that means consistency.
Surrounding ourselves with people who have the same passion really helps. The beauty of social networks creates this opportunity in no time. But the most important is to have embodied experiences that is using our body to experience.
Step4. Review our need on a yearly basis.
Revisit our need as it may change. We want to make sure we are still satisfying our most important need. If it changes, we know what to do. Create a different plan to satisfy that new need. We may move on our Ladder of Needs up and down depending on our stage in life, our personal situation and our personal blueprint. There is no right of wrong need by the way. All needs are important, we just want to make sure we are fixing an issue that we really have and not someone’s else.
Step5. Spend more time in nature
That is my favourite way to live a stress-free life. I have lived myself in cities with concrete blocks and in villages with trees and lakes and I can tell a difference in stress. Many other people have also acknowledged that when we spend more time in nature, our mind gets clear and our stress dissipates. It is a natural stress-releasing environment for us to feel enriched, create effective solutions and feel stress-free.
I would love to hear from you, how do you get success without stress? Please let me know by leaving a comment.
In the meantime, stay enriched, stay true, stay happy, stay positive.
With love & gratitude,
Darya