In today’s episode of the Inspiration2grow podcast I am discussing STRESS with a capital S. I just touched oh so briefly on this topic last week and I received so much feedback about the levels of stress YOU are experiencing. So, let’s dive straight into today’s show and let me ask you this important question. Take some time to really reflect on it…
Is Stress Running Your Life?
What if you could stop stressing about every little thing and feel calm and confident instead? How would that feel? How different would your daily energy be then?
While stress is an inevitable part of life – it doesn’t have to run our lives. Far too many of us work ourselves to the point of burnout where every challenge can start to literally feel like a life-or-death situation to our bodies and send us into fight or flight mode.
Burnout is NOT an inevitable part of success, and it is preventable!
The truth is that the STRESS you feel around chasing that next level of success and achievement is what’s preventing you from having breakthroughs in your MIND and BODY.
Stress can have you feeling exhausted, irritable, and anxious and cause health problems like headaches, premature aging, digestive issues, muscle tension, and high blood pressure. Not fun to say the least! And when you’re not feeling your best it’s hard to stay clear-headed and calm while working.
Can you make life less stressful – is it even possible?
I absolutely believe it’s possible to make life and work less stressful! While we will never entirely eliminate stress from our lives, we don’t have to suffer so much.
Living a healthier, less-stressed life is priceless.
After struggling with chronic stress my entire life, I finally found relief and it started with these 3 things…
The #1 Mindset Shift to Reduce Goal Stress
The Missing Piece the Changed My Life
The Way to Use 2% of Your Day to Reduce Stress by 60% (or more!)
Let’s break these down, one at a time, starting with the mindset shift….
1. Focus on Effort Over Outcome
Chronically stressed high-achievers tend to obsess over hitting goals. We literally plan our months around goals and the outcomes we want to achieve!
The ironic thing is that outcomes are out of our control – we can never really guarantee an end result. We can’t make people buy our stuff. We can’t make someone like us. We can’t control the unpredictable curve balls life throws at us.
The only thing we can control is our effort. In many ways that is freeing to realize! It allows us to stop obsessing over something we have no control over and shift our focus to something more productive – our actions. And when we take consistent, strategic action toward our goals, very often things turn out in our favour. Even if they don’t, we can go to bed at night knowing we did everything we could to reach our goals and if we don’t give up, eventually we’ll get there.
This leads me to another tip – which is to stop and challenge your thinking when you’re feeling anxious. When things don’t seem to be going your way and you start to catastrophize, stop yourself and challenge your thinking. Are you focusing on an outcome you can’t control? Are things really that bad or are you being way too hard on yourself? Would you talk to a friend the way you’re talking to yourself?
Sometimes, rather than taking a moment to challenge our thoughts and then shift into problem-solving mode, we just let ourselves spiral over what-ifs. This is never helpful and where we can get derailed. This isn’t about using positive thinking to ignore your problems, but rather using critical thinking to focus on real problems and solutions instead of letting anxiety take the wheel.
And what if things really aren’t going as well as you want, despite your best efforts? That’s where gratitude comes in. No matter how bad a day might be, there’s always some good to be found in it. Years ago, I started a dinner routine to help make gratitude a daily practice. You could do this with your partner and family as well.
I called it “3 great things” and my husband and I would have to name three good things that happened that day. I admit there have been days that, when left to my own devices, I wouldn’t have found time for gratitude.
Making gratitude a family affair or a regular evening occurrence, part of the routine, keeps me accountable and makes me dig deep to find the good in the day even on the toughest of days.
If you want to reframe it, you could also reflect on the highlight(s) of your day. No matter, how you look at it – through the lense of gratitude OR an absolute top moment of your day, I highly recommend this daily practice. It helps you see the awesome parts of your day.
2. The Missing Piece: Nervous System Regulation!
While I 100% believe that a rock-solid mindset is a key part of building a successful life and career (it was tip #1 after all!)
I DON’T believe that MINDSET is the #1 factor – despite what most coaches have been telling us for years now!
I believe that nervous system regulation is the key to reducing stress and overwhelm – not to mention stopping panic attacks, creating happier relationships, and feeling healthier and more energized.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve struggled with stress. I was even hospitalized at the age of 18 due to severe and very serious headaches. At first, the specialists thought it to be a tumor, so many tests were done. Thankfully, it wasn’t anything of that nature. Yet, I remember the doctor sitting on my bedside telling my what I was actually suffering from – stress headaches. What he recommended I do, must have sounded good to him. However, I knew it wouldn’t work for me.
Until I learned this…
What it boils down to is the fact that stress and anxiety begin as a nervous system response. It’s our body trying to keep us safe by sending us into fight or flight mode. The problem is that after a lifetime of being told that stress is dangerous and should be avoided at all costs – but not being able to avoid stress, because, well, life…we’re stressed about our stress! Now our bodies are like overly sensitive alarms that go off from a strong gust of wind and not just for a real threat.
Learning that stress isn’t necessarily the enemy – it’s my body trying to keep me safe – took away a lot of shame for me around my situation. Before, I thought I just needed to be ‘tougher’ and have a stronger mindset and didn’t know why I couldn’t just think my way out of my stress.
Learning how to calm my nervous system so that things like mindset work had a fighting chance of actually helping me changed my life.
You see, stress and anxiety live in the body first, so we have to begin with a body-based approach to anxiety. Once we’re in a more regulated state THEN we can address the root cause and start to heal on a mental and emotional level.
While there will always be stressors in our lives, we can learn how to bounce back faster when we hit roadblocks and not let stress and anxiety take us out of the game. It’s amazing to feel like I can cope with whatever comes my way now!
So if every little inconvenience derails your day or overwhelm has totally taken you out of the game before, I’d be willing to bet you were missing this critical piece of the puzzle – nervous system regulation.
3. Use 2% of Your Day to Make the other 98% Amazing
Which brings me to the final tip – creating a self-care plan that will ACTUALLY make a difference in defeating stress and overwhelm.
To be clear – what I am talking about when I say self-care is NOT bubble baths and face masks. I’m talking about a plan to get your mind right, your body right, and your priorities right and it’s an absolute GAME CHANGER. So don’t skip this!
Now, you might be thinking either – ”I don’t have time for that fluff, I’m busy!” OR “Of course, I’ll make time for self-care…Probably. If there’s time. Some day.”
(Knowing full well that self-care is always the FIRST thing to go when we’re the busiest and most stressed.)
You’ve noticed that, right? That you can keep up with your morning routine and your self-care habits when things are going well, but as soon as SHIT hits the fan you stop working out, doing your mindset work, and journaling, right?
Even when we KNOW it would make us feel better, we don’t do it! Why is that?
It’s one of those crazy things about being human – we might know intellectually what we need to do, but we can’t always seem to ‘make’ ourselves do it. We have so many competing priorities and, unfortunately, our health and wellness often take a backseat to business and family obligations. Unless we have some sort of health crisis, we can usually rationalize that it’s just not that important or urgent. Sad but true.
Two tricks I love to overcome this issue is habit stacking and finding your “why”. Habit stacking is simply attaching a new habit to something you already do every day.
For example, we eat dinner as a family every night, so adding ‘three great things’ to dinner made daily gratitude easy to remember.
Part of my morning routine is filling up my water cup when I make coffee. I’m certainly not going to forget to make coffee, so if my water cup is by the coffee pot I never forget that either and suddenly staying hydrated is 10x easier.
You’ve probably been told before to find your ‘why’ when it comes to your business, but most of us don’t go deep enough with the process. Then we come up with reasons that SOUND nice and all but they don’t actually light a fire under our bums and get us to do the thing already. That’s the key.
Here’s the good news – self-care doesn’t have to be time-consuming. In fact, I’ve put together a self-care routine that’s PERFECT for crazy-busy times and it can be done in 30 minutes (or less).
That’s just 2% of your day but it can reduce stress by 60% or more!
Now, are you ready to go from chaos to calm? The three tips I just shared can be game-changers, if you implement them. It’s all about putting strategies and tips in motion and actually trying them, not once but a few times to reap the benefits.
Let’s recap today’s 3 tips:
The #1 Mindset Shift to Reduce Goal Stress – FOCUS ON EFFORT OVER OUTCOME
The Missing Piece the Changed My Life – REGULATE YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM
The Way to Use 2% of Your Day to Reduce Stress by 60% -USE 2% OF YOUR DAY TO MAKE THE OTHER 98% AMAZING
We’ve heard it from several of the experts I’ve had on the show – stress can lead to serious health issues if it is not dealt with. It also has a negative effect on so many other functions of our bodies, not just our minds.
Friends, it’s time you took steps to decrease any negative stress you are experiencing and start thriving as opposed to merely surviving…somehow.
That’s my message for today.
I would also like to invite you to become part of the Inspiration2grow community on Facebook. The group name is: Inspiration2grow for Female Goal-getters. It is meant to be a community of like-minded women who want to grow strong from the inside out. There will be daily journalling prompts, nutrition and fitness tips, exercises to try, encouraging conversations among the community and lots more. So, be sure to join this group for support, new ideas and the necessary rocket fuel to propel your health and wellness to new heights.
You owe it to yourself to take care of yourself, show up for yourself and become the best version of YOU.
In case you haven’t heard it yet today, let me be the first to tell you…
You are incredible, capable and your potential is limitless. Never forget that I believe in you 100%. Now, go out there and show the world what you are truly made of.
I hope to have inspired you to grow.
Til next time,
Lisa xoxo
