Workplace Stress: How to Deal & How to Heal

Part One: How to Deal

Let’s be honest, if your lifestyle (the manner in which you are accustomed to living) did not require you to work at least 40 hours or more per week – you wouldn’t!

As effective as it maybe in reducing stress, you can’t tell your boss to kiss your “expletive”!  So, for mere mortals like me, to maintain a certain status quo in our lives, dealing with workplace stress, amongst the other stressful factors of life, is simply a given.  Stress is your permanent companion for the day.  And if not carefully controlled, workplace stress will affect your outside life.

What to Do

Make a few observations:

1.  What are you stressing about?

2.  Do you have ultimate control over the problem?

3.  Are you having a career crisis?

The observations lead to one end, stress is something you can control.  Put pen to paper and list what you can do – then do it.  If your stress issue is related to direction, relax and devise a plan that will take you from point A to B.  If you do not have ultimate control of your situation, then clearly define your role, create your plan of action and keep moving forward.  Remember, you should only be concerned with what you can control – everything is not in your realm of responsibility.

Finally, career crisis.  A career crisis is akin to the invisible baby in the room wanting to scream.  Personally, I have experienced a sense of uneasiness (even major headaches) when approaching the office.  I knew that my chosen career was something that I did not want to do for the rest of my life.  But, that epiphany did not strike until I was watching an episode of Oprah (no, Oprah didn’t save my) in December 2008.  Her guest, Marcus Buckingham, the creator of Career Intervention, was teaching a group of women how to reignite the passion in their careers with a step-by-step workshop.  I took the free course on Oprah.com and my results were very interesting.  To make a long story short, I am in the process of changing careers.

Tool #1:  Take the Marcus Buckingham - http://www.oprah.com/article/money/career/20080401_orig_marcusbuckingham_course

Part 2 – How to Heal coming Jan 13, 2009