Every now and then we find ourselves in stressful situations. While it is easier said than done, the best thing to do is take a deep breath and relax. It is difficult to think when you are stressed but when you remove the emotional trauma, it becomes easier to think and respond under pressure. How many times have you been stuck and unable to move forward because stress left you standing still like a deer in the headlights? Stress slows our response time and our ability think. When you lose your ability to think, you lose your ability to plan or act.
Take a few deep breaths. What have you been putting off because of feeling overwhelmed or stressed? It doesn’t have to be perfect, just begin. Someone said to me at a time when my desire for perfection left me actionless, “done is better than perfect.” Is there more on your plate than you can handle? Begin with small bites. The more you do, the less you have on your plate. Slowly but surely, your stress levels decrease, and your plate will be manageable.
The key to being disciplined for success is not just taking things off our plates but learning how to manage how much we allow to be put on them. Sometimes we take on the stresses of others, or the responsibility to do for others what they could or should do for themselves. If you suffer from the it-won’t-be-done-right-unless-I-do-it syndrome, you may have already entered the ranks of the overly stressed. Often the excess on our plates was put there by others, and we did not have the strength or courage to say “No, that is something I cannot or am not willing to do.”