With context and patience, you can navigate the hurdles of even the most “stressful” life. Whether you’re a CEO, janitor, laborer, or stock broker, we all have career stresses at varying levels. Some more than others. And this doesn’t take into account stress from families, finances, relationships, deaths, moving, etc…!

I think and write a lot about stress. I think it’s probably because I’m always stressed out. I wake up to 50 or so e-mails in the morning, handle calls and internal and external meetings in the mornings, and then work through projects and problems in the afternoons and evenings. Even in the evening and over the weekends, my mind is still consumed with work, whether I’m in front of my MacBook or not. It’s not that I’m complaining or impassioned about my work, it’s that I’m passionate to a fault, passionate to a point where I feel like I can’t breathe sometimes without the weight of work on my chest. It’s part being the owner and CEO of a busy small business in a down economy, part the cost of high-intensity projects.

My life drives my work and my work is driving my life. This year, I’ve been working round-the-clock to reduce stress and to nix avoidable stressful elements and activities out of my life. Whether via time management, additional resources, narrowing focus, or saying “no” to certain projects, the goal has been to filter what comes in so that what comes out is the highest quality from the right paradigm. Why does it seem that though there is light at the end of the tunnel, stress is still as prevalent as ever?

There’s certainly some things that are unavoidable. Deadlines. Employee illness. The economy. In my opinion, you have to put your head up and dive right in to the task to chip the bulk of the stress away by sheer force. Other times, you have to prioritize stresses, dealing with the biggest problems first. And still other times, you have to call on the troops or step back to gain perspective on the situation.

If you’re a high-strung individual, a perfectionist, struggle with OCD tendencies, or always feel stressed out, don’t just try to shoot for vacations or allocate time for doing nothing at all. It doesn’t always work for me and may not always work for you. Instead, funnel your energy into a distracting and rewarding activity. Maybe hanging out with some friends over drinks, visiting a theme park, or sky-diving. The point is, funnel your energy towards exercise, activities, and distractions when you need a break. Otherwise, you’re time spent “relaxing” and doing nothing will turn into you sitting on the couch feeling even more overwhelmed and held by a downward spiral of negative energy, while your pile of stress feels like it’s growing by the minute while you’re not doing anything about it!

If you have stress in common with me, let’s both take solace in that we can overcome and persevere. As humans, we have a remarkable ability to supersede our own fears and worries. Stress and worry are byproducts of passion, commitment, values, and hard work. It’s our natural response to help us elevate to deal with problems. In the words of Devlyn Steele of ToolsToLife, “remove ‘problems’ from your vocabulary; problems are simply opportunities.” Opportunities to get a new job, step up to the plate and earn respect, get involved in a better relationship, or learn something important.

Don’t just take my advice, here’s a few more ways of reducing your stress: 1, 2, 3, 4

-RB

Lately I’ve heard people talk about problems. About running from problems. I hear people talk about such things, and I have questions.

What is a problem? The dictionary says it’s,

“…a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome…”

A problem is a state of mind, a place in your head. I agree that you cannot “run from your problems”. Your legs have a strange habit of taking your brain along with them wherever you go.

Thousands of actions and reactions occur around us in any given moment, and we are able to process an infinitely small portion of these events. Every time we observe an event, it’s filtered through a complex framework that we’ve developed, genetically and socially. There are billions of potential problems we could perceive around us, but if we were always processing them, we’d never have time for anything else.

If your eyes take in the fact that you’re standing on the edge of a cliff, neurons fire in your brain telling you that it’s in your best interest to keep a good distance between yourself and the edge of the cliff. The cliff is a potential ‘problem’ for your desire to live. If you obey the biological instinct to stay away from the perceived threat to your survival, you’ll avoid one problem. Base jumping is an entirely different way of dealing with the problem of a cliff. If you need to get to the bottom of the cliff for some reason, it could be a far more efficient way of dealing with the problem, even if it goes against your instincts.

Survival examples are pretty straightforward, most of us tend to regard dying as something to be avoided. The societal framework that we determine problems by isn’t anywhere near as clear cut.

I have a friend who recently made a life changing decision. He made major steps towards his goals and asked people he cared about for feedback. Several of the individuals who had a very different set of values from him said that they thought he was running away from his problems. Coincidently the ‘problems’ they referenced were situations related to them, situations my friend had no control over.

It’s all too often that people are dissuaded from paths of great adventure and growth by the opinions of others, of people that claim to care about them. I’ve been around too many people who wait for a person to have an idea, and experience some sort of reassurance in themselves, by casting doubt and trying to create ‘problems’ within the ideas of others. Most of the time they don’t even realize what their doing. I’ve seen more people dissuaded from trying to do great things by the care and concern of people around them than by any real circumstance.

The truth is, my friend was running from some of his problems. He was running from an environment where stagnancy was applauded and going to an environment where he’d be encouraged to reach his potential. The individuals who thought he was making a bad decision assumed that their system for spotting problems was universally applicable. It wasn’t. Thankfully my friend realized that and didn’t allow their opinions to dissuade him.

Lately I’ve been watching myself to see how often I create problems that don’t really exist, both for myself and others, it happens a lot more often than I would have liked to think. The more I become aware of this, I’m able to change my habits to create a positive reality. I’m creating and achieving goals rather than creating and wasting time worrying about problems. Circumstances tend to be difficult enough on their own, why make things any harder for yourself than you have to?

Marshall has a serious case of wanderlust, and writes about his wanderings at the wonderfully entertaining LazyVoice.