2020 is gone and I know a lot of us are looking forward to what comes next. Rather than make resolutions about what you’re going to do, let’s take tactical steps to solve issues that affected us throughout 2020. Looking through recent LinkedIn comments, I noticed that stress was something that impacted many people in this community. With this in mind, here’s a list of things you can do to deal with stress at work. I hope it provides you value.
1. Use GAP.
Gratitude and perspective are so important. There’s no question that so much of my happiness is due to my perspective. That perspective is completely predicated on the singular variable of health of the people I love.Therefore, when I practice GAP to manage my stress, I tend to think of my family.
Here’s an example: every few days,I pretend a member of my family has died. What do I do with that information? I use it as the framework to keep everything in perspective. I know it’s ludicrous, but I’m being serious. It’s really easy for me to receive bad news about revenue loss at Vayner when I’ve imagined that my father passed away the day before.
When I use GAP, everything on my mind, everything on my to-do list, it gets put into perspective. If I lose out on a deal, that might suck, but it doesn’t impact the health of my family. When seemingly monstrous things happen you have to think, does it impact my family or friends? Once you realize that the stress you encounter at work often has no effect on the people in your life that matter–you become so much happier.
The Three Ps.
How would I describe someone that has the three Ps? That’s someone who has practicality, positivity, and perspective. It’s someone who is optimistic but not delusional. Someone who realizes that life is how you see it.
In today’s society, it’s very easy to find a lot of negativity if you look for it. On the flip side, if you want to find a lot of happiness and opportunity you can find that just as easily. Are you looking for the negative or are you looking for the positive?
I’m a huge believer in this; practicality matters. It’s true, you can’t only believe in sunshine and rainbows and that everything is going to be okay–you have to be practical. Your positivity must be equal to your practicality. You have to work.
Stress doesn’t go away magically by wishing it was gone. But, you can be positive about it. Yes, life can be super hard. However, aren’t we so lucky that we’re able to try at all? Our grandparents couldn’t start a company by using their phones at the end of their workday. This is the greatest era of the “at-bat”. You’re not guaranteed a home run, but at least you can try.
3. Fix your well, not just your sink.
What do I mean by that?
Well (no pun intended), if you’ve gained some perspective and realized that while you’re grateful for what you have–but you may be in a career you don’t like, or a role that you’d like to switch– you can do something to change it. You have to be very strategic about 7pm to 10pm. Of course, you have to be patient (because you should be mindful of your health, family, etc.) but if you execute properly over a 5 year window, you’re going to have a vehicle to get out of your situation.
What does that look like in practice? It could mean writing long, detailed posts on LinkedIn where you solve imagined scenarios. You could make a video talking about how you would solve a theoretical problem in someone’s budget, then post that video on LinkedIn. If you do that in written, audio, or video format, it is my belief that a company reaching out to hire you because they know you can help them with contemporary marketing.
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