Today marks the start of the International Stress Awareness Week (7th-11th November 2022)
There are many ideas for helping you identify and manage stress. Positive Venture aim to prevent stress occuring in the first place.
This is a very important area for us all to give focus and not something we can address in a quick news bulletin. If you would like some guidance for yourself, your team or your organisation click here for further details
Try this……
This is a good time for taking some time for you first of all. How are you? Find yourself a space, away from distractions and allow yourself to reflect.
Lets start with a simple question, but one which can prove challenging for some to answer. How happy are you?
If you were to represent this as a number between 1 and 10, 1 being a dark place where you were at your lowest ad 10 being you simply could not be more happy.
To make it more specific to you, think about the following:
- How are you feeling today, right now in terms of happiness?
- Think about where you are physiologically
- Consider your relationships with friends, family and work colleagues
The aim is to chose one number to represent where you are with all of the 3 bullet points considered.
Once you have your number (this is subjective and not placing you in any kind of box!), let us look at the next step.
If for example you were a 6, what do you feel you could do yourself to move to a 7 or higher?
Aim to look at this as small but successful incremental gains. Try to avoid trying to go straight for 10 as this could lead to disappointment and have a negative effect.
This is a simple tool for you to check-in with yourself and look to improve your well-being by being open and honest with yourself. You may well find that one day you will be an 8 or 9 and another day you will feel that you are a 3 or 4. Ask yourself what has happened to trigger this feeling? Is there anything that you can now do to move yourself back to a better place?
As humans we will inevitably have good days and not so good days, this is normal so do not think that you are alone in sometimes feeling that you are not really happy. There are many factors which can trigger the low scoring for us; Anxiety of a project/task in your workplace, trauma, memories are just a few. The key thing is focus on: How do I improve on my current position? How can I move up, what small thing will make a difference and start me on the upward road?
If you are the type of person which when you take a good look at you behaviour, you find that you are always trying to be the next best thing, it could be workplace status or likes on your Facebook, you may well find that you and your habits could be part of the problem. You may be in a position created by yourself that you simply do not allow time for you to actually be happy!
Awareness of those around you
There are many books, podcasts and videos on self-help, there are very few on helping others.
This is an area that we all need to be aware of. Helping others, recognising when all is not well, being there, guiding and supporting.
Keeping your eyes and ears open with positive intent. This is an area where most people although they want to sign up to this, find themselves not actually doing this, and sometimes this can result in indicators being missed and someones well-being spiralling downwards. It’s really simple, just talking can sometimes be all it needs. Strategies for engaging and opening up situations are part of a positive development programme.
click here for further details