achieving life balance coping with stress carefor

Welcome to

Achieving Life Balance:

Coping With Stress @ Work and @ Home

Copyright – Not to be reproduced. – Provided by Power Link Dynamics TR - 2

Seminar Goals

• Eliminate any misconceptions about stress management

• Learn to avoid or eliminate stressors when possible

• Build upon your current coping resources and stress-management skills

• Develop new coping resources


Stress is Life

Worth Remembering …

“If you want to avoid worry live in a day-tight compartment and don’t stew about the future. Just live each day until bedtime.”

- Dale Carnegie


Stress Busters

Questions Worth Answering:

• What is creating stress in your life?

• What can you do about it?

• What are you prepared to do about it?


Life is About WIIFM’sQuestions Worth Answering:

• How satisfied are you with where you are in your career, your home or social life?

• If you could make a change in your career, your home or your social life what would it be?

• What do you need to do to make that happen?


What’s Your WIIFM?


“Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson


The Attitude Challenge

• Does everyone have an attitude?

• Are they all the same?

• Do you own 100% of yours?

• Does your attitude have an impact on the outcome in any given situation?


Attitude


“Change what you can – influence what you will – and give up all of those things that you cannot control”


Your Attitude is a Choice


“Everything can be taken away but one thing: The last of human freedoms – To choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances. To choose one’s own way”

- Viktor Frankl


Choice


“Once the what is decided the how always follows. We must not make the how an excuse for not facing and accepting the what.”

- Pearl S. Buck


Change Model

C – Commit – to a new beginning

H – Habits – break old and start new

A – Action – take one step at a time

N – Never – never give up – be persistent

G – Goals – set SMART targets

E – Evaluate – your plan & reward yourself


Good Habits = Good Results


“As long as you keep doing what you’ve been doing then you are going to keep on getting what you’ve been getting. Change the habit – change the result”

- Zig Ziglar


Change as Opportunities

Questions Worth Asking:

• Why must organizations change?

• Why must you change?

• What gets in the way of change?


Stress?

Questions Worth Answering:

• What is stress?

• What do we know for certain about stress?

• What do we know for certain that can help us cope with the negative health side-effects of stress?


Relax – You’re Alive


“Bless this stress. It helps me see that I’m such a mess”

- Loretta LaRoche


Functional

Dysfunctional

ExcitementComfort

Boredom

Low Balanced High

Frustration

Stress Level


Three Methods for Coping with Stress

• Eliminate the stressor or change your response to it

• Use the coping resources available to you

• Develop new coping resources


1. Most Critical Issues

2. 4. Least Critical Issues

3.

Able to Change Difficult to Change

Hig

h P

rior

ity

Low

Pri

orit

y


Most Critical Issues

• Your most critical stress issues are those you feel are a high priority to change and you are able to change them. If it is blocking you from achieving your goals then it should be a high priority.


Least Critical Issues

• Your least critical stress issues are those with a low priority and are very difficult to change. For those stressors that you can change - develop a plan. For those stressors that you can’t change - than you need to change your response to them.


Balance


“Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they’ve started.”

- David Allen


The New Reality


“I thought 24/7 was a new kind of Mac’s Milk not a new way of life. This new technology was suppose to improve the quality of our lives – not compound it”


Just Say No


“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists of eliminating the non-essentials.”


My De-Stressor


“If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you are thinking about it”

- Mary Engelbreit


Relationship Coping Resources

• Problem Solving -- the ability to deal directly with the difficult situations you face and make positive changes to resolve them.

• Communication -- the ability to share thoughts and feelings with others in order to promote mutual understanding, even under difficult circumstances.


Relationship Coping Resources

• Closeness -- the degree to which you have developed a supportive social fabric in each area of life

• Flexibility -- the degree of organization in your life and how comfortable you are with unstructured and unpredictable situations


Personal Coping Resources

• Self-Esteem -- feeling good about yourself and perceiving yourself as having inherent worth as a person

• Mastery -- feeling competent and in control of your life

• Social Support -- having a network of friends and family you can count on


Personal Coping Resources

• Spiritual Beliefs -- believing in a set of values external to yourself

• Nutrition -- dietary habits and motivations

• Exercise -- physical activity that maximizes or minimizes your ability to cope with stress


Problem Solvingrefers to your ability

to deal directly with

the difficult situations you face

and make positive changes

to resolve them.


To Improve Your Problem Solving Skills

• Deal with the problem as soon as you perceive it

• Define the problem carefully

• Separate people from the problem

• Separate emotions from the problem


To Improve Your Problem Solving Skills

• Determine your desired outcome

• Make a list of creative and practical solutions

• Don’t get trapped into thinking there is only “one” resolution


Problems


“The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.”

- Theodore Rubin


Communicationis the ability to share thoughts

and feelings with others in order

to promote mutual

understanding, even under

difficult circumstances.


Communication Patterns

• Gender Patterns

• Generational Patterns

• Geographic Patterns

• Cultural Patterns

• Educational Patterns

• Occupational Patterns


Communication Realities

• You cannot not communicate

• Whenever contact is made communication occurs

• Meanings are in people not in words

• Meanings cannot be transferred from one mind to another … only words can be transferred.


“We only hear half of what is said to us,

understand only half of that, and remember only

half of that.”

--Mignon McLaughlin


Active Listening

• Listen to understand, not to judge

• Focus on the message sent

• Use “reflective listening” to summarize the other person’s message

• Praise others for sharing


Listening Realities

• Humans have the ability to listen at a rate of _______________ words per minute

• Humans have the ability to speak at a rate of _______________ words per minute

• That gives humans ________ words per minute to tune out.

- Dr. Ralph Nichols


Effective Speaking

• Use “I” statements when you speak

• Be respectfully assertive

• Speak for a purpose

• As for feedback


Speak with Purpose


“Let us say what we feel, and feel what we say; let speech harmonize with life”

- Seneca


Closenessrefers to the degree to which

you have developed a

supportive social fabric in

each area of your life.


“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand

fibers connect us with our fellow men...”

--Herman Melville


Life is a TEAM Sport

T – Together

E – Everyone

A – Achieves

M – More


“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together

is success.”

--Henry Ford


Developing Closeness• Make relationships a priority

• Share your personal feelings

• Find quality time together

• Focus on the positive and give praise

• Focus on future goals


FlexibilityIndicates both the degree of

structure in your life and how

comfortable you are with

situations that are unstructured

and unpredictable


Developing Flexibility• Be open to diverse ideas

• Brainstorm ideas without judging

• Avoid judging “right” or “wrong”

• “Try on” other people’s ideas


“The most successful people are those whose success is the result of steady accretion. It is those people who carefully advance step by

step, their minds becoming wider and wider, and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation, persevering in what they know to be practical, and concentrating their thought upon

it, who are bound to succeed in the greatest degree.”

--Alexander Graham Bell


• For stressors you CAN change, develop a specific plan of action for creating change, then follow through with that plan

• Change your response to those stressors you CANNOT change

• Improving stress management capabilities can increase personal and business productivity, emotional well-being, and relationships

Achieving Life Balance


• Stress is not always bad. Moderate stress can help you be more creative, energetic, focused, and productive

• When stress increases beyond our ability to easily cope with it, we begin to feel its negative effects



• Problem Solving -- the ability to deal directly with the difficult situations you face and make positive changes to resolve them

• Communication -- the ability to share thoughts and feelings with others in order to promote mutual understanding, even under difficult circumstances



• Closeness -- the degree to which you have developed a supportive social fabric in each area of life

• Flexibility -- the degree of structure in your life and how comfortable you are with situations that are unstructured and unpredictable



To Improve Problem Solving Skills:

• Deal with the problem as soon as you perceive it

• Define the problem carefully• Separate the people from the problem• Determine your desired outcome• Don’t get trapped into thinking there is

only “one” resolution



To Improve Listening Skills

• Listen to understand

• Focus on the message sent

• Use “reflective listening” to summarize the other person’s message

• Praise others for sharing



To Improve Speaking Skills:

– Use “I” statements when you speak

– Be assertive

– Speak for a purpose

– Ask for feedback



To Develop Closeness:

– Make relationships a priority– Share your personal feelings– Find quality time together– Focus on the positive and give praise– Focus on future goals



To Develop Greater Flexibility:

– Be open to diverse ideas

– Brainstorm ideas without judging

– Avoid judging “right” or “wrong”

– “Try on” other people’s ideas



• Commit yourself to a specific goal

• Habits…break old and start new

• Action…take one step at a time

• Never give up…lapses might occur

• Goal-oriented…focus on the positive

• Evaluate and reward yourself



7-Steps to Less Stress It’s a Matter of Being FOCUSED©

F – Forgiving of others and yourself O – Organized – invest time wisely C – Consistent – develop good habits U – Understanding – show empathyS – Sincere – help others be successful E – Energized – live your dreams D – Determined – never give up


Your Reality Check


“You can either get FOCUSED or get STUFFED. The choice is yours”


Thank You Thank you for participating in this

workshop. I hope you got your WIIFM.

Brian Smith

Power Link Dynamics

[email protected]

www.pldynamics.com

achieving life balance coping with stress carefor

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