Hopefully by now you’re beginning to understand more about how you get stressed. It’s important to consciously become aware of the activating events and beliefs that “push your buttons”. Actually, just becoming aware of these can cause you to view them differently, improving your chances for counteracting their negative consequences.
A detailed self-assessment will be done a little later, but for now, think about those activating events that ALWAYS stress you out. Take a minute or two to jot those down. Are any of them avoidable situations? In other words, can you just totally avoid those events? If you’re like most people, these events are the ones you cannot avoid under any circumstances. If that’s the case, then take a couple more minutes to think about your attitudes, beliefs, and learned habits toward those events. Would everyone you know have the same beliefs as you do toward those same events? No? If not, then how did you develop those beliefs? Did parents, partners, peers, or TV influence you over time? Can you identify the specific source of those beliefs?
Need an example to help you understand your stress toward external events? Try this one. You’re driving to an appointment. You have just enough time to get there, without a minute to spare. You’re on the interstate highway, and you’re blocked behind two semi-trailer trucks, both doing about 10 miles an hour slower than you are. The one truck passing is doing about a mile an hour faster than the slower truck. Over the course of the next three miles, you’re flashing lights, honking your horn, weaving back and forth behind the passing truck, trying to let the driver know you want to pass. RIGHT NOW! Your exit is the next one and you want to get around these two to make up some lost time.
Finally, you get by and take the next exit. Unfortunately, you have to stop at the red light at the end of the exit ramp. But at least you feel relieved you finally got around those trucks. The next thing you know is that the truck you were flashing to move out of the way rolls up behind you at the light. All that stress and excitement didn’t really pay off, as you’re only about 100 feet in front of where you could have been without all the drama. Why all the stress?
Understanding your reaction to events like this is the first step in becoming aware that you can control your stress in most instances. You control it by avoiding it.
We’ll talk more about analyzing your stress in the next step.
Next Step:
Possible Solutions to Your Stress
Solving your stress depends on what works for you.
Previous Step:
Activating events coupled with your beliefs end up with the consequences of stress.
Other Steps in this Section:
Once you know the causes of stress, you are better equipped to develop an action plan to address your stress.
The ABC Model helps you understand the causes of stress.
Activating Events are those events in your environment that cause you to get stressed.
Your beliefs or thoughts can be a major contributor to your stress.
Action – Strategies for Success
Take action in order to reduce or eliminate your stress.
Our Subconscious Stress – Fight or Flight
Our fight or flight response is nature’s own stress inducer.
