Your palms are sweaty, your stomach is filled with butterflies, and you feel an acute
sense of excitement. This is the kind of stress we need to perform at our best, enhancing our creativity, fitness, immune systems, and problem-solving skills — as long as we handle it the right way.
Unfortunately, when most people experience leadership stress, it’s not in anticipation
of an upcoming challenge. Usually, it’s a sense of dread associated with continuously striving to do more with less.
Today, the major stress trigger is “Rumination”, that is; thinking of past events and fixating on them. It’s totally fine to look back on the past but it becomes harmful when we continuously think of these events in an obsessive way.
It’s important to recognize how much time you spend ruminating about things that
produce no useful outcomes hence leading to leadership stress and burnout.
As your body responds to these stressful demands, you may think you know what it means for stress to have an adverse impact on your health. However, some of leadership stress’s most damaging side effects go unnoticed in the short term and only manifest themselves over the long term.
One of the keys to eliminate leadership stress is through mindfulness and taking time
to reflect. The following actions can help you gain focus on priorities:
-Defining and clarifying the expectations of your tasks, maintaining a project schedule and completing tasks ahead of deadline can not only relieve stress in the moment but also help eliminate future stress.
Finally, by focusing on constructive self-talk, and avoiding distorted thought patterns,
taking time to exercise and eating a healthy balanced diet can all contribute to a person’s wellbeing.
Author:
Catherine Perri - JUMP professional trainer
